Mandy's Munchies

Vegan Chocolate Avocado Cake

2012-01-21T15:20:00.000Z

MUNCH RATING: 4/5

Before I started my dairy-free diet I didn't really eat many cakes and biscuits, but now I'm eating even less as there aren't that many sweet things that don't contain dairy.

So far I've only tried baking dairy-free rock cakes and some biscuits with relative success (I want to play with the recipes before I write a post). But I've lost a few pounds in weight (that I didn't want to lose) since I started this diet and so I thought it was time to start eating more cake.

I found this recipe on the brilliant Joy The Baker blog. Using avocado in a cake was a totally new concept, but I am supposed to be eating more of them for the good fats they provide, so it seemed like a good idea to try this cake. I really wanted Steve's family to try this cake, so I decided not to make the garish avocado frosting and opted for a simple chocolate butter icing instead. I used Vitalite as it's dairy-free and it's a Vegan Society approved product, so it's still a vegan cake if that's what you're looking for.

TASTE TEST:
Well Steve said this was the best chocolate cake he's ever eaten; so I definitely got the thumbs up from him! But his Mum was less keen on this cake as it was too dense and chewy for her tastes. I think it's because this cake is so incredibly moist; rather than the buttery and light sponge that she is used to making. Another reason for the heavier texture is I added too much flour (see below). I would make this again as it had a good chocolate flavour and it would have been perfect if I'd got the flour right!

CHANGES TO THE RECIPE:
I always worry when I bake using recipes that measure in cups, because baking requires you to be very precise and using cups can give you so many variations. My 3 cups of flour came to 465g, which did seem like an awful lot. I've checked on a few websites and 1 cup is between 120-130g; so 3 cups would be between 360-384g. So I definitely overdid the flour! This is because I followed Ina Garten's method of using the cup to scoop flour out of the bag and then leveled off with the back of a knife. But I've now read this is the wrong way to do it! You should spoon the flour into your cup and then level it off. Here is a good article explaining how it should be done. I'm always learning!

I used 1.5 cups of caster sugar instead of 2 cups of granulated sugar, as I always reduce the amount of sugar in baking.

I used 1/4 teaspoon of table salt instead of the 1/2 teaspoon salt.

I used 2 Tablespoons lemon juice instead of the 2 Tablespoons of white vinegar as I didn't have any. I read you can substitute lemon for vinegar in most recipes. You have to include some sort of acid to react with the bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) as this is what will make your cake rise in absence of the eggs. I owe any semblance of chemistry knowledge to Alton Brown!

My avocado wasn't as ripe as I'd like it to have been, so I squashed it through my potato ricer as I thought this would be the best way to mash it up and it did work!

The recipe below is how I made it, you can find the original here.

Oven temperature: Gas mark 4/350°F/180°C
Oven shelf: middle
You will need: two 8-inch sandwich tins, greased and lined with non-stick baking paper

Ingredients:

3 cups plain (all-purpose) flour
6 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Bournville)
1/4 teaspoon table salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
1.5 cups caster sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup soft avocado, well mashed, about 1 medium avocado
2 cups water
2 Tablespoons lemon juice (that's the juice of 1 lemon)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to Gas mark 4/350°F/180°C.
Grease and line your tins. Set aside.
Sift together all of the dry ingredients except the sugar. Set that aside too.
Mix all the wet ingredients together in a bowl, including the super mashed avocado.
Add sugar into the wet mix and stir.
Mix the wet with the dry all at once, and beat with a whisk (by hand) until smooth.
Pour batter into a greased cake tins. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. To ensure even baking, turn your cakes after half the cooking time has elapsed.
Let cakes cool in pan for 15 minutes, then turn out onto cooling racks to cool completely before frosting.

Chocolate Butter Icing (an adaptation of a recipe from The Great British Bake Off Book):

125g Vitalite
390g icing sugar
4 Tablespoon milk (I used Rice Dream rice milk to make it dairy-free)
3 Tablespoons cocoa powder (I used Bournville)

Put the Vitalite in a mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until paler in colour and very creamy.
Sift the icing sugar in the bowl.
Add the rice milk and cocoa and beat in with a spatula to get all the icing sugar incorporated before switching to the electric mixer until very smooth and thick.

This makes loads of icing and I had quite a bit leftover.

Olive Magazine Gourmet Mini Break at The Aviator Hotel

2012-01-21T13:04:00.000Z

The outside of The Aviator Hotel

So I am finally writing about the Gourmet Mini Break at The Aviator Hotel that I won from Olive Magazine! It happened way back in May 2010, so sharing the experience nearly 20 months later isn't going to win me any awards for breaking news reporting, but it's a nice way to remind myself of the experience.

First of all I'll explain how I was lucky enough to win the competition. Basically I went onto the BBC Good Food website and I entered all the competitions they have available. I do this at least once a month and my efforts (if you can call filling in your name and address effort) paid off as I won this fabulous competition.

Here is what the prize included:

Light lunch at leisure served in the Deli
Group Chocolate Truffle Masterclass with Head Chef, Allan Pickett and a chance to meet the other winners
Winners Champagne and Canapés in the Sky Bar
Three Course Dinner in the Brasserie
Overnight stay in a Sky Suite
Breakfast at leisure
Deli picnic hamper to take away

The Aviator is one of the leading hotels of the world by TAG and it's situated on the Hampshire/Surrey border so it wasn't too far for us to travel to, but we did get a bit lost and ended up at an airfield where the friendly security guard gave us a map to the hotel (we were obviously not the first people to get lost looking for the hotel).

View from the top of the main staircase

When we finally arrived we were really impressed with both the exterior and interior of the building. The curves are really stunning and it feels very glamorous.

View from our Sky Suite - Farnborough Airport on a rainy day

The hotel overlooks Farnborough Airport where they hold the Airshow; an event I am very familiar with as my Dad used to work for BAE and he took me to the Airshow a couple of times when I was a child.

Lounging area of the Sky Suite

Our room was a Sky Suite, which was located on the 4th floor and it was amazing! We'd never stayed in such a massive room before (55 square meters) with a super king size beds, walk in wardrobes and a separate area for lounging. We definitely felt very special and so lucky to stay in such a lovely suite. This did of course mean that any hotel we'd stayed in after this could not possibly compete and we would forever be saying "It's not as nice as the Aviator".

There was also a TV in the cabinet near the end of the bed

Huge luxury bathroom

Shower big enough for 2 people - look at the size of the showerhead!

My first taste of a snuggly, luxury bathrobe

So after we'd had a good look around our Suite and swept our jaws off the floor, we went and had our lunch in the Deli.

Afternoon Tea - don't mind if I do!

There was a good choice of sandwiches, soups and salads, but we decided to share the Afternoon Tea as it was the most expensive item on the menu! We were presented with a very generous 3 tiers of sandwiches and cakes and a huge scone with clotted cream and strawberry jam. We didn't manage to finish it all, but we tried a little bit of everything and we particularly liked the little orange cakes.

After lunch we had free time before our Chocolate Truffle Masterclass. I was really looking forward to this part of the day and it didn't disappoint. The class was held by the Head Chef Allan Pickett who was incredibly friendly and we found out his in-laws live in the next road from us! Small world indeed.

Head Chef Allan Pickett

All the ingredients laid out for us

The hat made me feel like a pro!

Steve carefully piping his truffles

Getting ready to coat my truffles in either nuts, cocoa or chocolate strands.

The finished truffles!

The truffles were really easy to make: just mix good quality chocolate with heated cream and then quickly cool so that it is a piping consistency. Then you dip them in more melted chocolate and coat them with whatever you like. In fact they were so easy that it made me greatly wonder how chocolate shops can charge so much for them!

We met up with the other winners for Champagne and canapes in the Sky Bar, but we left very quickly as we don't like Champagne and we were more excited about what was on the dinner menu! Dinner was held in the Brasserie and overall I think we did enjoy the meal, although I made some bad choices and suffered serious food envy!

Steve's perfectly cooked Scotch Egg starter

Steve really liked his Scotch Egg as the yolk was still lovely and soft. I ordered a Duck Salad but it was drowned in sesame oil so I didn't enjoy it.

Steak with the works

We both had steak and I should have ordered the sirloin like Steve, but I ordered the bland fillet only because it came with dauphinoise potatoes! I never order fillet, because there's no fat on it to give it any flavour (my favourite cut is rib-eye) so I was obviously blindsided by the potato accompaniment. Looking back, I should have ordered the sirloin and asked for the dauphinoise to replace the chips. I think if I'd been in America this brainwave would have come to me much easier; as restaurants over there seem more willing to accomodate your choices.

Coffee crème brûlée, orange shortbread and an unappetising chocolate smear

Panna cotta with poached strawberries

Steve had the crème brûlée as it's one of his favourite desserts. We can't imagine why the chef would think that chocolate smear on the plate would improve appearances in any shape or form. I had the panna cotta and it's the first time I'd tried this dessert. It was really nice and I discovered very easy to make; although I have only made it once and I should do so again and post a recipe!

Deli picnic hamper

This is the lovely hamper that we were given when we checked-out of the hotel. It was filled with a cold meat selection, cheeses, chutneys and other goodies.

Booja-Booja Dairy Free Chocolate Truffles

2012-01-07T15:16:00.000Z

Booja-Booja Espresso Chocolate Truffles - The Artist's Collection

Steve's sister was given these truffles from a PR company and she brought them over at Christmas as she didn't want them. Since I've been on my dairy free diet I haven't been eating many cakes, biscuits and sweets. It hasn't been a problem for me as I don't have a particularly sweet tooth, but it was nice to have an alternative to the Green & Black's chocolate that I've been eating. Plus I loved the box and it will be handy to keep my jewellery in it.

I was intrigued to try these truffles as they are dairy free and I didn't think it was possible to make truffles without dairy, as Steve and I made them during our stay at the Aviator Hotel and it was a simple mix of melted chocolate and double cream.

For some reason the ingredients for these espresso truffles aren't listed on the Booja-Booja website so I've copied them from the label on the box:
Chocolate (cocoa solids 55%, cane sugar, emulsifier: soya lecithin, vanilla), Coconut Oil, Water, Coffee 5%, Agave Syrup, Cocoa Powder.

Truffles aren't my favourite chocolates so I'm not an expert, but these were quite nice. I don't think they were as creamy as traditionally made truffles, but they were very close in texture. The chocolate flavour was deep and rich and the espresso provided just the right amount of coffee.

I personally wouldn't buy these for myself as they are very expensive. These truffles came in a beautiful handmade wooden box, so they retail for around £23. A standard box is around £7 which is still a lot of money for 16 chocolates, even if they are handmade.

I thought it would be a good idea to try making a hot chocolate from the truffles and I actually preferred consuming them this way.

To make one serving:
I heated 200ml of Rice Dream (rice milk) in the microwave for 1 min 45 seconds and then stirred in 2 of the truffles until they melted and then added half a teaspoon of vanilla sugar. This produced a very chocolately hot chocolate and it's a good way for me to eat more calories as I've lost so much weight since going dairy free!
200ml Rice Dream = 94kcal
2 truffles = 122kcal
1/2 teaspoon sugar = 8kcal
Total calories = 224

Elimination diet starts today!

2011-12-13T14:02:00.000Z

Steve and I went away to Lifehouse Spa over the weekend (it was a complimentary stay to make up for the bad experience we had there before) so I didn't want to start my diet until today, otherwise I would have missed out on lots of nice food!

I had to do a pulse test before eliminating dairy from my diet for a month. So this morning, before I had eaten anything, I took my resting pulse. This means counting the number of beats that occur in 1 minute.

I counted 67 beats.

Then I waited 10 minutes before drinking a glass of semi-skimmed milk (I could of eaten some cheese instead but I couldn't stomach eating cheese for breakfast!). Then I took my pulse rate again 10 minutes after drinking the milk.

I counted 66 beats.

Apparently if my body is intolerant to dairy then I should expect my pulse rate to increase. So I waited another 10 minutes and counted again.

I counted 67 beats.

Hmmm, not very supportive evidence that I am dairy intolerant. But I am committed to trying this elimination diet to see if I can get rid of my eczema.

So I tried rice milk made by Rice Dream for the first time in my tea. I tasted some of the rice milk on its own first and to me it just tasted like watered down milk and that's how it looked as well. When I used it in my tea I think I added about double the amount of normal milk, but I think this was because the rice milk didn't make the tea change colour as drastically as normal milk. So I was trying to match the colour as my normal brew, but I think you would have to add a lot of rice milk to get the same shade. I like my tea pretty strong and I think the rice milk actually allowed me to taste the tea a lot better as it wasn't as overpowering as normal milk. So I actually enjoyed my first lactose free cuppa!

So I'm feeling very positive about this new diet as there are lots of substitute dairy products available. If I didn't like the Rice Dream then I was going to try Lacto Free as their milk apparently tastes exactly the same as normal milk but the lactose has been removed. There's quite a lot of useful information on their website and tips on how to do an elimination diet as well.

I'm not expecting to see the effects of my diet on my eczema for a couple of weeks as it takes this amount of time to purge the body of dairy. I am also aiming to eat more oily fish, olive oil and avocados to boost the oils in my skin, so we shall see!

Eczema condition:-
Hands - on middle, ring and little fingers of both hands and a big arc between middle and little finger on the palm of my left hand. Skin is mainly very dry, not itchy and not cracked or sore.
Body - a small patch on the left side of my waist. Skin is itchy.

Lifehouse Spa - take two!

2011-12-12T18:50:00.000Z

Date of stay Saturday 10th - Sunday 11th December.

After complaining about our unsatisfactory experience at Lifehouse Spa back in September, they offered us a complimentary stay with all meals paid for and a free massage each too! So obviously we accepted their offer and managed to squeeze in a visit before Christmas.

Our train journey there was much smoother this time and we arrived just after 1.30pm. I'd asked for the complimentary taxi to pick us up from the station and the driver, Brian, arrived a few minutes after we'd got off the train.

When we arrived at the spa we noticed that they had changed the arrangement of the reception area as there used to be lots of different desks, so you weren't really sure who you were supposed to talk to. They had obviously taken note of people's feedback and tried to make the checking-in process much slicker. We were served by the same girl who checked us in last time and it was much faster than before. You can't check into your room until 3pm, so we went and had a hot chocolate in the Strawberry Tree.

After we'd settled into our room, we went and used the jacuzzi and sauna. The spa was a lot busier than the first time we came, but then again it was a Saturday. Steve said the wet area of the spa wasn't as nice as the one at the Alexander Hotel (I didn't use the facilities there as I was busy having treatments), but when I said "Is Lifehouse more like a public swimming pool?" he said that was a good description.

Anyway, we were more interested in the food, but our dinner reservation wasn't until 8.30pm! For lunch we'd only eaten a couple of sandwiches from M&S during our train journey, so we were absolutely starving and we regretted not bringing any snacks with us. I caved in and went to reception to ask if there was anywhere I could buy some snacks and they said they only had chocolate or rice cakes in the Strawberry Tree. So I paid £3 for 2 small bars of Green & Blacks.

So onto dinner. The restaurant was very busy but the service was quite good. Our waitress remembered to tell us what the specials were, but they had run out of the duck starter which was a bit disappointing, especially as they no longer had the duck main course that we'd tried on our first visit. In fact, the whole menu had changed, which was actually a good thing as it meant we got to try new things.

Apologies in advance for the poor photos. I used my smart phone and the restaurant was quite dark so I had to use the flash, but they didn't all come out very well, especially the main course photo!

Pan Fried Partridge, Confit Leg, Beetroot & Fennel Salad, Honey Walnuts

For the starter we both opted for the partridge as we'd never tried it before. We both agreed that it was nice and the taste was a cross-between duck and chicken. The pan fried part was a little bit dry but the confit was good. I don't like the taste of aniseed so I didn't think I would like the beetroot & fennel salad, but it tasted fine. Unless they forgot to add the fennel, which wouldn't be surprising as they had forgotten to add the honey walnuts but we only realised this omission afterwards!

Suffolk Chicken Supreme, Open Mushroom Lasagne, Truffled Potato Foam, Olive Oil Crisp

For main course we both had the Chicken, which is surprising as we don't normally like chicken breast as it's usually quite dry and tasteless, but this was unbelievably moist as we think they'd poached it (Steve said he thought he could see the marks on the chicken from where it had been wrapped in plastic). Steve said this was the best chicken he'd ever tasted and if I could cook it like this then he'd be very happy! The mushroom lasagne was disappointing as it was quite cold and the potato foam on top wasn't that appealing either. We saw a few people sending their dishes back to the kitchen, but we don't know what they didn't like about their food. We fancied some seasonal vegetables, but after finding out they were brussel sprouts and chestnuts we changed our minds and just had some market potatoes, which are just boiled new potatoes and nothing special.

Warm Chocolate Fondant, Peanut Butter Ice Cream, Caramelised Almonds

For dessert we both had the fondant and as you can see it was really runny in the middle and I actually prefer it to be a little bit more solid, but that's just my preference. I couldn't actually finish it all as it was so rich, but the peanut butter ice cream was gorgeous!

Overall we enjoyed our dinner, but the fact that we were both immensely hungry did increase the enjoyment factor!

Our massages were booked for 9am the next day, so we only had a very light breakfast. I had a croissant which was cold and tasted a bit stale and some fruit salad. The last time we visited you could order different items from the hot cooked breakfast menu and the food was freshly cooked. But they have now changed this to a buffet so you had no idea how long the food had been sitting there - who likes rubbery scrambled eggs? So even though the hot breakfast was included in our stay, we didn't go anywhere near it. It's a real shame they have changed it to a buffet and for the high prices they charge they really should go back to cooked-to-order.

The massages we had were house massages and we got to have them together in a double treatment room. My masseuse was very good and asked me straight away if the pressure she was using was hard enough, but Steve's only asked him after massaging him for a little while.

Our lunch was booked for 1pm, but we were both getting hungry and the restaurant was empty at 12pm so we asked if we could have it earlier and they said it wasn't a problem. Our lunch included 2 courses, so we both opted for a main course and dessert as we didn't fancy any of the starters.

Herb Crusted Loch Duart Salmon, Beetroot Puree, Glazed Carrots, Golden Beetroot and Citrus Emulsion

Steve had the salmon as his main course, which he did enjoy but he wasn't that keen on the citrus emulsion.

Pan Roasted Plaice on the bone with Curly Kale, New Potatoes and Garlic Butter

I had the plaice which was beautifully cooked and it was the first time I had tried kale and it was very good. It doesn't have an overpowering flavour and the texture is more interesting than spinach. Unfortunately both our main courses had been liberally scattered with sea salt, so each mouthful was tainted by a crunchy, salty bitterness. They provide salt on the table, so the heavy-handed addition by the chef is completely unnecessary.

Sticky Toffee Pudding with Toffee Sauce and Clotted Cream.

For pudding we both couldn't resist the sticky toffee pudding, but we were both disappointed. The sponge of the pudding had a decent texture, but lacked flavour as there was no hint of the taste of dates. I found the toffee sauce a little bit sweet, but I generally do find things too sweet for my palate.

Overall our stay at Lifehouse Spa was much better the second time, but we wouldn't go back again if we had to pay. One reason is that it is too far for us to travel to and I think there are better spas closer to home.

You are what you eat!

2011-12-07T16:38:00.001Z

Today I went to see a nutritionist. It's something I've been meaning to do for a very long time, but I've kept putting it off for various reasons. But my eczema on my hands was getting worse and I was getting increasingly more and more tired, so it was time I did something about it. Also, I'd been watching The Food Hospital series on Channel 4 and it really spurred me on to try and treat my ailments through food.

Before my consultation I had to complete a questionnaire which included what symptoms I had, a short food diary and my general health and wellbeing. It was actually quite difficult to answer some of the questions as you have to be very honest. For example, I didn't tick the box which said I was an irritable person, but Steve said that was definitely a box I should tick! Charming!

The consultation lasted about 1.5 hours and I came away having learned a lot. I had already suspected that my blood sugar levels were all over the place and I now have to make sure I am eating a lot more regularly to make sure my energy levels remain constant, rather than peaks and troughs.

A surprisingly diagnosis was my eczema and tiredness might be caused by a dairy intolerance. My parents are Chinese and it's widely believed that because milk is not regularly drunk in China this has led to a lactose intolerance. So even though I was born in the UK and brought up on a mixed Western/Eastern diet, my genes are saying that dairy is not good for me.

So I need to do an elimination test, which means cutting out all dairy for 4 weeks. This will mean trying soya and rice milk for the first time! Apparently it takes 3 weeks to get accustomed to the taste of soya milk, so this will be interesting! When I think about what I have to cut out of my diet (milk, cheese, butter, ice cream, yoghurts) I don't think it's too bad and it could be worse having to give up something like wheat or my real weakness potatoes!

I am also severely lacking in B-vitamins so I need to get a good quality B-vitamin complex supplement.

I also need to increase my intake of fruit and vegetables, eating at least 3 different types of vegetables at dinnertime. This won't be difficult as I really enjoy eating veggies and it will force me to be a bit more adventurous and try new things to stop getting bored. More oily fish and olive oil will also help with the omega oils for my skin.

So, I thought I would blog about my new diet and it will be good for me to keep a record of my progress. But the diet is going to start on Monday as Steve and I have a nice foodie weekend planned so I don't want to miss out!

My lucky loot from Lakeland!

2011-09-30T14:05:00.001+01:00

My order from Lakeland arrived today! I love getting new kitchen gadgets and it's even better when it's free!

But I'm off to Croatia today for a week, so learning how to pressure cook and making lots of mashed potato will have to wait. I'm sure the heat wave will have ended by then so looking forward to making stews and soups!

I won, I won!!

2011-09-25T20:09:00.000+01:00

A little while ago I entered Lakeland's £5,000 Summer Free Prize Draw on their website, as I'm a little bit of a competition fiend and it was a simple competition to enter as I only had to give them my email address. On Thursday I got an email from them saying I'd won a runner up prize of £150 gift vouchers! I was really chuffed as I'd been flicking through their catalogues and making a mental wishlist of things I really would like but couldn't really afford.

So over the weekend I've been making a proper wishlist and I have to say it's been quite difficult to choose what I'd like to spend my vouchers on as there are so many great things to buy! I already knew that I wanted to get a proper potato ricer, as I LOVE potatoes and I really like mashed potatoes. I'd read that you can microwave potatoes in their skins and then cut them in half and put them straight in the ricer and all the skin stays in the ricer. So I'd really like to be able to make quick and easy mashed potato, even if it's just for myself as Steve isn't a potato lover. I've read the reviews and looked at the ricers in a Lakeland shop and decided I'll get the most expensive one, the Chef'n Potato Ricer as it looks the best quality.

The ricer is nearly £32, but that still leaves me with £118 to spend. I did entertain the idea of getting the Morphy Richards Soup Maker for a while, but I decided it was an expensive uni-tasker (as Alton Brown says "Beware the uni-tasker") and a saucepan and stick blender does just as good a job. Then I thought about getting the Remoska Electric Cooker but I decided against it as it seemed like it did a very similar job to a halogen oven which is also on my mental wishlist, but you can get these for half the price.

So after a lot of thought and research, I've decided to get a pressure cooker! I'm going to push the boat out and get the more expensive one that Lakeland offer which is the Kuhn Rikon Pressure Cooker. I've never used one before as my parents used to have an old style one when I was growing up and all the frightening hissing really put me off. But everyone who has reviewed/written about modern pressure cookers says they're completely different now and I'm hoping the new style will be easy to use and I will be able to make our favourite meals in half the time. For instance I'm cooking a Lamb Massaman right now in my Tefal 4-in-1 slow cooker and it's going to take at least 6 hours for the meat to get tender. Apparently pressure cookers can create stews/casseroles in 20 minutes!

I'm really excited about learning a new style of cooking and hopefully I will be able to post some recipes that I've adapted for pressure cooking once I get the hang of it. Any advice gratefully received!

Everyone says I'm so lucky to win so many competitions (I don't win that many, the last one was for a stay at the Aviator Hotel in May last year - I still need to write about this!) but I always say "you've got to be in it to win it!"

Dining dangerously at Westfield, Stratford

2011-09-18T20:32:00.000+01:00

Steve and I visited the new Westfield at Stratford after our stay at Lifehouse Spa. It was a completely spontaneous decision as our train home from Essex stopped at Stratford and we thought we could stay in the new Premier Inn hotel beside the shopping centre and do a bit of shopping.

We'd been to a Westfield shopping centre in San Francisco and the food there was amazing so we were hoping for more of the same thing over in the UK. We'd arrived shortly before dinner time and as it was the opening week everywhere was completely packed so there were long queues for all the restaurants like TGI Fridays, Wagamamas, Las Iguanas and Giraffe. So we decided to go to the fast food part where there was loads of choice - literally food from around the World.

We found a great Thai place called Rosa's. I had the Black Pepper Beef noodles and it was fantastic. The meat was incredibly soft and tender and there was just enough pepper to give this dish a nice kick.

Steve had a Beef Massaman curry which he liked but it was too sweet for me. We also had the Chicken Satay which was nice but a bit cold because it had been sitting on the counter for a little while. The kitchen cooked everything fresh and they couldn't really keep up with the orders.

We'd just started our meal when the smoke/fire alarm went off and an announcement kept repeating that we should evacuate the area, but I didn't want to leave our food! So we stayed put as none of the staff was telling anyone to leave. I couldn't see any smoke or smell any fire so I thought it was just one of the kitchens having a bit of an issue with a burnt pan. It did make me realise it takes quite a bad situation for me to abandon my dinner! Eventually the alarm stopped and everyone went back to their food, but then it kept going off again as the reset system was messed up so the smoke screens kept coming down and going up again into the ceiling. It certainly made dining rather interesting!

For lunch the next day we went to Tortilla Mexican Grill for burritos. Steve had his with steak and I had mine with braised pork which was so tasty and tender. You can get it filled with all different fillings and I chose mexican rice, onions, peppers, cheese, sour cream, lettuce and some hot sauce from the bottle as I didn't fancy any of the runny salsas on offer (definitely get the hot sauce - Steve didn't see it so didn't ask for it and regretted it!). As you can see they really pack a lot in there and this was the best burrito I've ever had (OK I haven't had many, but the last one I had was at the Ferry Building in San Francisco and it was awful!). We had medium burritos and they were definitely big enough for lunch.

Unfortunately neither of these places are at the Westfield in Shepherd's Bush which is closer to where we live. Sigh. But they have other branches dotted around London so they are definitely places we would visit again.

Oh yeah, the shopping at Westfield isn't too shabby either - got myself some new trainers, a snuggly hoody and a new tee!

Lifehouse Spa, Thorpe-Le-Soken in Essex

2011-09-17T22:49:00.001+01:00

Date of stay Thursday 15th - Friday 16th September.

Back in June I bought a package deal from Travelzoo for a 1 night stay, breakfast, lunch and dinner plus £100 towards spa treatments for only £149 - an incredible deal! So in July I booked our stay for September as it was a popular deal and quite booked up. At first I thought I'd never heard of Lifehouse Spa, but then I remembered I had read a very favourable review in the Sunday Mirror, so I was really looking forward to it.

Unfortunately it wasn't exactly the relaxing experience we had hoped for. To start with, our journey to the spa was disrupted by someone jumping in front of a train so we were delayed by an hour. That obviously wasn't the spa's fault, but when we finally arrived we found out that they hadn't booked us in for the shiatsu massages that I'd requested. I obviously wasn't very happy as I'd booked these massages over 2 months ago and someone from the spa had even phoned me to confirm exactly which massage I'd wanted! This is the second spa that Steve and I have been to and on both occasions they said that they can't tell you what times your treatments are in advance of you arriving. I think this is the most ridiculous policy and it should be changed because then our massages might have actually been booked in! So bad luck for us because there was only one person who actually did shiatsu massages and he was fully booked up and then not available the following day. First of all we were offered reflexology as an alternative treatment (no thank you!), but we specifically wanted massages, so she eventually said we could have the Iconic Massage which is basically a full body massage. The cost of these went over the £100 that was part of my package so I asked for the extra cost to be removed, which they agreed to but I think they really they should have offered to waive this cost! They only had massages available the following day so we had to wait even longer to release all that tension!

So we had a little walk around the grounds as they have "extensive" gardens, which were nice to wander around as it was a sunny day. We saw a few people wandering around the gardens or on bikes which you can rent from the spa. Our taxi driver who picked us up from the train station (a free service the spa offers) explained that the gardens were put in place by Lord and Lady Byng and they collected a lot of different plants. Here's just some of the unusual things we saw (well they were unusual to me as I'm not really into flowers! I took quite a lot of photos as I was testing out the aperture priority mode on my point-and-shoot camera!):

And here's me relaxing in one of the deckchairs:

Apart from the massages, what I was mostly looking forward to was the food as I'd read lots of reviews on Tripadvisor who had raved about how fantastic it was.

They had given us a dinner reservation for 7pm so we got to the restaurant on the dot.

As a precursor to the meal, we were presented with an amuse-bouche of a honey dew and watermelon palette cleanser which was unusual but actually very nice and refreshing.

For my starter I had the scallops (we think this was actually just one scallop sliced in half) which came with cauliflower puree (delicious! tasted like cauliflower cheese), capers and raisins (I didn't like the sweetness of the raisins and I couldn't taste the saltiness of the capers). Overall I enjoyed my starter.

Steve on the other hand had a disappointing risotto which was supposed to have smoked haddock and leeks, but it was beyond bland and it was so white on the plate that we added the fork in the photo for some interest. The foam on the top did not add anything apart from an unappetising resemblance to spit. When we stayed at the Alexander House Hotel Spa we had risotto as a starter and that was awful as well, so we have made a vow never to order risotto again (this rule does not apply if in Italy or when we go to Croatia in two weeks as my friend says it's wonderful there).

For main we both ordered the duck breast ('like-a-hot-knife-through-butter' tender, but such a crying shame that the skin wasn't crispy!) which came with fondant potato (I loved it but Steve passed his to me as he's no potato lover) and braised Savoy cabbage (very nice but quite salty from the added bacon - we had bacon with our full English breakfast and I couldn't eat it because it was so salty!). The carrots and green beans were a side order that we shared but they were very plain and not really necessary.

For dessert I had the pineapple tatin with rum and raisin ice cream and toffee sauce which rounded off my dinner nicely. I think this was a deconstructed version as it seemed like the pastry had been cooked separately from the caramelised pineapple, but it was still very nice. I have only made an Apple Tarte Tatin before when I did my Michelin Star Cookery course but I will definitely give this pineapple version a try.

Steve opted for the chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce, which was disappointing as the cake was a bit dry and there is a serious lack of chocolate sauce on the plate!

Overall we did enjoy dinner, although Steve got a little irritated that our waiter didn't tell us what the specials were after I overheard him telling another table (but they didn't actually sound that special anyway) and we saw some other tables receiving bread but it wasn't on the menu so it must have been insider knowledge to ask for it, no doubt at an extra cost. After receiving our starters and seeing the size of other people's starters we thought we might need some bread to fill us up, but actually our duck was a decent sized portion and I was definitely comfortably full after my dessert.

We had a nice drink in the bar area and then headed to bed as it had been a bit of a stressful day! I won't say too much about the room as there are photos on the Lifehouse website and they are a pretty good representation. However, the room was very hot as there is no air conditioning and even with the window/door open it was still very stuffy.

Anyway, back to talking about food! Breakfast consisted of a buffet where you could choose cereals, fruit, yoghurt and pastries and then you could also choose from a hot menu. So we had croissants and juice and then the full English which was one sausage, bacon, black pudding, portabello mushroom, cherry tomatoes and your choice of egg (I had a fried one and Steve had poached, but were a little overcooked). We were quite restrained at breakfast as we knew we had lunch still to come and our massages.

So after using the spa facilities of hydrotherapy pool, salt inhalation room and sauna, we had lunch.

Lunch was 2 courses and we chose to have a dessert instead of a starter with our main course. We both had the Pave of Dedham Vale beef (perfectly cooked medium-rare but I prefer a bit more fat for flavour), truffle foam (another disgusting foam! not my cup of tea), roasted cherry tomatoes, frisee salad with bacon (there was no bacon but as it's so salty maybe that's a good thing), and a few Maldon sea salt seasoned chips (these weren't fantastic, Steve's Mum does better chips!). This was the most expensive item on the menu so it was the obvious choice, but it was definitely the most appealing thing on the menu.

Desserts were disappointing on both counts. Steve picked the thyme poached peaches (undercooked and cold) on orange cake (dry and dense) with strawberry mousse and I had the panna cotta which was layered (the top part was the best bit but I don't think that was the panna cotta!).

The menus we had were different to the ones that are on the website at the moment, but if you have a look then you'll get a good idea of the type of food Lifehouse is trying to offer. To be honest I think they are trying too hard with some of the more leftfield creations and they should concentrate on getting the basics right.

Another foodie mentionable is The Strawberry Tree Juice Bar where you can get tea, coffee and fruit smoothies (we didn't like the sound of the Vegetable Explosion!). We had a hot chocolate from there using our free drink voucher which was an unexpected extra of our package.

Well I think I've covered every aspect of the food so I should say something about the massages we finally had. Mine was done by the lovely April who could not apologise enough for the booking mistake. She gave me a wonderful massage and did as I asked by concentrating on the horrible knot in my shoulder and in my neck. Steve was less impressed with his massage by a different therapist, but part of it is luck of the draw with who you get and also how comfortable you feel with asking for what you want.

So would we stay at Lifehouse Spa again? I would have to say no I don't think so. The difficulties we had with our booking has really put me off visiting any spa ever again. It seems it's the norm to not get your treatment and meal schedule until you arrive and we really hate not knowing what's going on.

Lifehouse need to sort out their reception/booking system as getting through on the phone is a nightmare as they take ages to answer and they don't reply to emails very quickly, if at all (I resorted to posting a message on their Facebook page to get an answer to my question!). I heard mistakes with bookings have been quite common, so I would recommend if you are visiting to double-check that your treatments have been booked in!

First taste of home-grown sweetcorn!

2011-09-13T21:11:00.002+01:00

I decided to take the plunge and pick a cob today. This is the one I checked for ripeness the other day and you can now see how much the top of the cob is undeveloped. After I'd fully opened it up and squeezed one of the kernels closer to the base of the cob and the liquid that emerged was milky.

I boiled it for 3 minutes and it was lovely and sweet. However the kernels were quite small. They look quite plump but they are actually quite shallow so when you bite into it you don't get a satisfying amount of corn to munch on. But I'm still really pleased that I've managed to grow a new vegetable and it was edible! Most of my corn plants have double cobs, so we've still got a few more to enjoy!

you can read more about growing sweetcorn here

Blackberry & Apple Loaf

2011-09-11T20:46:00.000+01:00

MUNCH RATING: 5/5

I've made this cake before but I didn't write a post, however it turned out so well again this time that I thought it deserved a mention. I really like this cake because it's so easy to make - you don't need to cream the butter and sugar together, just rub them together with the flour like when making a crumble. It's also lovely and moist but it has a crunchy topping for a great texture contrast.

Also this time I used blackberries that Steve and I picked from our local hedgerows, so that made it a bit more special. I'd frozen the berries and it worked just as well as the first time I'd made the cake. To freeze berries is incredibly easy - just wash the fruit and drain really well. Then I cover large baking trays with cling film to stop the berries from sticking to the trays and then just pop them in the freezer for about an hour or until they're hard and then pop them into freezer bags. The berries can be used straight from the freezer in this cake.

CHANGES TO THE RECIPE:
The recipe is from BBC Good Food, but I tweaked it slightly by using soft brown sugar instead of muscovado and using 75g less sugar as I always reduce sugar in cake recipes. The apple gives it enough sweetness and makes the cake lovely and moist.

I also used a silicone loaf pan which is slightly wider so my cake wasn't as deep, so it cooked more quickly.

you can find the original recipe here

Oven temperature: Gas mark 4/350°F/180°C
Oven shelf: middle
You will need: a 1.7 litre loaf tin

250g self-raising flour
175g butter (I used Stork, at room temperature)
100g soft brown sugar
½ tsp cinnamon
2 rounded tbsp demerara sugar
1 smallGala apple, (not cored or peeled)
2 large eggs, beaten
1 orange, finely grated zest
1 tsp baking powder
225g blackberries (fresh or frozen)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to Gas mark 4/350°F/180°C. Butter and line the bottom of a 1.7 litre loaf tin (no need to do this if using silicone). In a large bowl, rub the flour, butter and brown sugar together with your fingers to make fine crumbs. Measure out 5 level tbsp of this mixture into a small bowl for the topping, and mix into it the cinnamon and demerara sugar. Set aside.
Coarsely grate the apple down to the core and mix in with the eggs and the zest. Stir the baking powder into the rubbed-in mixture in the large bowl, then quickly and lightly stir in the egg mixture until it drops lightly from the spoon. Don't overmix.
Gently fold in three quarters of the berries with a metal spoon, trying not to break them up. Spoon into the tin and level. Scatter the rest of the berries on top. Sprinkle over the topping and bake for 50 minutes and then cover loosely with foil and bake for a further 30 minutes. When done the cake will feel firm, but test with a skewer.
Leave in the tin for 30 minutes before turning out, then cool on a wire rack. Peel off the paper before cutting. Will keep wrapped in foil or in a tin for up to 2 days.

Growing chillies, tomatoes and peppers

2011-09-11T20:09:00.002+01:00

My chillies have actually done quite well this year and I've had a few that have turned red despite the poor summer. The secret of my success? It's because these plants were grown last year and I overwintered them. Before I read about overwintering I had always assumed chilli plants had to be thrown away after the fruits were harvested. But following the advice on the Chilli King website shows that the plants can produce again after a sleep through the winter. I admit that I cut a few corners with my overwintering process, in that I didn't put the plants in new compost. I simply pruned the plant to 10-15cm of the main stem.

I will try overwintering these plants again this year, however I think I will give them some fresh compost as I think they need a boost of nutrients. The stems are starting to look quite woody and I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not. I'm looking at it as a positive sign that the plant is just becoming more mature and since there appears to be new growth I'm not going to worry too much.

you can read about my chilli growing from last year here

Now onto peppers. These are called Sweet Mohawk Peppers and they're supposed to be small and bright orange. I bought this as a small plant from the garden centre so I expected them to have enough time to grow and ripen, but there is absolutely no sign of even a slight orange tinge to them yet! I find it strange because these peppers have been in the same mini greenhouse (the plastic type) as my chillies and they have already started to turn colour. I'm really not that keen on green peppers, so I'm really hoping these will turn orange! I don't think I'll bother trying to grow peppers in the future as we just don't have enough sun in the UK!

Finally these are my tomatoes. This is the first time I've tried a bush variety - these are Tumbling Toms. I love that the bush variety needs very little attention in that you don't need to pinch out the sideshoots like you do with the cordon variety. My tomatoes in the past have grown out of control because I haven't been prudent enough in my pruning and they have needed lots of support with canes. This bush variety has grown quite happily in a large pot, but unfortunately a lot of the fruits have turned red before they have grown to a decent size. They are still rather tasty and I will definitely grow these again next year.

Sweetcorn update!

2011-09-10T15:50:00.000+01:00

The weather has definitely been on the Autumnal side lately, but today was actually really warm and lovely. So I decided to check on my sweetcorn to see if it was ready for eating.

Well the silks have now turned brown, which is apparently a good indicator of ripeness, so I had a little peak underneath the husks to see if my corn was ready yet.

Unfortunately it was still looking a bit undeveloped and pale - not the glorious burst of yellow sunshine I was expecting as I unwrapped my little maize parcel. When I squeezed one of the kernels the liquid that came out wasn't milky, so I wrapped this cob back up to be consumed another day.

read more about growing sweetcorn here

I've been growing carrots in the space around the corn in my raised bed and I decided to pull up the last remaining ones to give the corn all the resources it might need to finish ripening.

I was quite surprised how many carrots were actually left in the bed and how big some of them had grown! These were Chantenay carrots and I bought them as seedlings from Chessington Garden Centre (along with spring onion and leek seedlings as they were on offer 3 for £10) because I haven't had much luck growing carrots from seed.

The first few carrots I pulled out a few weeks ago were a disappointing size and were only good for using in a stir fry as a "carrot gesture". But these ones I harvested today were of a decent golf ball size. I'm pretty sure it's because they had longer in the ground, but also they had more space to grow after I'd pulled the first ones out. When I planted the seedlings they were in little clusters of 3 or 4 and I didn't pull them apart to space them out as I thought I would damage them too much. I also didn't thin them out when they were growing as I didn't want to encourage carrot root fly. As it happened my carrots didn't suffer from that pesky pest and I think growing spring onions in the same raised bed helped as the oniony smell confuses them. The only problem I had with my carrots was ants and aphids, which is what happened to me last year. My carrots were covered in ants and these other tiny white bugs which I initially thought were ant eggs. A search on Google revealed the white bugs were actually aphids and according to wikipedia:

Some species of ants "farm" aphids, protecting them on the plants they eat, eating the honeydew that the aphids release from the terminations of their alimentary canals.

So I waged war on the ants and grabbed an out of date jar of cayenne pepper and generously sprinkled it all over the carrots - boy did those ants run! Anyway, my carrots seemed to be fine after that and I will enjoy eating the fruits of my labour later this evening.

Anniversary Dinner at Roast

2011-09-03T21:25:00.001+01:00

Yesterday Steve and I celebrated our 6 year anniversary of the day we met. I took him to Roast in Borough Market for dinner as I'd bought a voucher from Toptable for £20 which entitled me to £40 of food. I might sound like a bit of a cheapskate using a voucher for our special dinner, but Roast isn't a cheap place to eat so I think it's justified!

I ordered the Slow roast Wicks Manor pork belly with mashed potatoes and Bramley apple sauce which is on the main menu as I'd read good reviews of it online by other diners.

Whilst Steve ordered Roast rib of Welsh Black beef with Yorkshire pudding, horseradish and Colman’s English mustard which is from the Daily Special menu. Of course, main courses don't come with any vegetables, so we ordered carrots and creamed leeks, which disappointingly lacked any creaminess.

Steve's main came with roast potatoes which he declared as being "the best roast potatoes" he's ever eaten. Normally he only has one roast potato when his Mum cooks Sunday dinner, but he ate all of these apart from one which he very kindly let me try as I am a massive potato lover!

We did enjoy our main courses, but I wouldn't say the food was incredible. The crackling on my pork wasn't crispy so I had a tough time cutting through it, even after I requested steak knives to replace the poor excuse of a knife they provided us with (definitely a faux pas of the waiting staff).

Apart from the bitter herb stuffed inside my pork, I thought it all tasted rather bland and I hate to say it, but I reached for the salt and pepper grinders more than once.

I needed a long break after my main course before ordering dessert as the portions were generous. I ordered the Pear, raspberry and almond crumble with custard. Again I was a bit disappointed as the crumble wasn't particularly crunchy and the fruit wasn't cooked enough for my liking. I actually prefer my own crumble recipe! Also, the custard was too runny, so instead of adding a delicious comfort blanket to my crumble it drowned it in a watery crème Anglaise mess.

Steve ordered the Chocolate banoffee pudding with Devonshire clotted cream, which he thought was going to be a chocolately version of a banoffee pie, but it was in fact more like a chocolate fondant with just a hint of banana.

Overall we had a nice meal but I don't think I'd visit Roast again for lunch or dinner. One reason is the price and another is the menu is rather limited and not that many things appealed to me (to be honest the price of certain things does make them a lot less appealing!).

I was worried that the service was going to be appalling as so many online reviews had complained about this, but our waiters were absolutely fine and I didn't mind paying the 12.5% service charge whacked on top of my bill.

Grow your own Sweetcorn 2011

2011-09-03T18:19:00.001+01:00

Well it's certainly been a long time since I have posted anything on my blog! I haven't had a lot of time since I began working full time in London, so cooking and blogging about it has definitely taken a backseat. But I have still made time for some vegetable gardening so I thought it was about time I wrote about it! I also now have a smartphone, so taking photos and posting should be a bit easier and less time consuming!

This is the first time I've tried growing sweetcorn and it's going pretty well I think as it's blocking the view out of the kitchen window! I grew these plants from seed. They were an online freebie so I didn't get to choose the variety but they are called "Extra tender and sweet F1 hybrid" which sounds promising. They were easy to grow from seed: I just put them in 3inch pots filled with seed compost, watered, covered with cling film and left them in my mini greenhouse.

They sprouted really quickly and I put the seedlings into the raised bed when they were about 6inches tall. I read that you have to plant them in blocks so that they can pollinate properly, so I squeezed 8 plants into my 50cm x 1metre raised bed. I've got spring onions, carrots and dwarf beans growing in the spaces in between the sweetcorn and I don't think they've been competing too much for space or nutrients. I started off by feeding everything Miracle Gro, but then I read sweetcorn likes tomato feed so I switched to a weekly feed of that instead.

This is one of the cobs emerging a couple of weeks ago. I found it amazing how it suddenly appeared in the side of the trunk of the main plant. Each plant has 2 cobs growing so we will be eating quite a lot of sweetcorn quite soon!

Apparently they are ready to eat when the silks have turned dark brown and when you pierce a nice plump kernel a milky liquid is released.

Grow your own Chillies 2010

2010-10-23T11:23:00.000+01:00

PLANT: ‘Hungarian Hot Wax’ Chilli Pepper
HEAT: mild to medium (10,000 Scoville)

This is a popular`Yellow Wax' type, originating from Hungary and is sometimes known as the Banana Chilli. Fruits start out a pale yellow then turn orange and red at maturity. The smooth and waxy peppers grow 5 to 8-inches long and 1 to 2-inches wide. Known for being prolific and easy to grow.

The Serrano chillies I tried to grow last year were a disaster, but I did plant them very late and the seeds weren’t brilliant to begin with. I’m quite confident I will get a good yield from these Hungarian Hot Wax chillies as I’ve started them early. I’m hoping I’ll have enough to dry and store – fingers crossed they won’t be as hot as the Apache chillies I grew in 2008 as they blew our heads off!

Sow under cover:	February - April	1st Mar
Sow direct:
Germination time:	10-21 days	21st Mar
Plant out:	Before the end of June.	26th May / 5th June
Harvest:	June-October	15th July
Time from seed to plate:	70 days

SOW:

Sow as early as possible as they can take a long time to germinate and have a long growing season. Don’t start seeds off after April as it’s too late.
Sow in small pots of Jiffy 7’s. The ideal temperature for germination is 18-21°C so a windowsill above a radiator is ideal. The plastic bag/pot method is the best way to germinate seeds.

GROW:

When seedlings develop leaves that are large enough to handle, prick them out into individual 6-9cm (2.5-3.5in) pots.
A few weeks later when the plants are 8-10cm (3.25-4in) tall, transfer to larger 21-23cm (8-9in) pots, growing bags or directly into the ground before the end of June.

CARE:

Water regularly.
As soon as fruits begin to set, feed with a general fertilizer or liquid tomato feed every 2 weeks.
Stake for support and limit height by pinching out growing tip.

HARVEST:

Pick them at their peak – usually September, depending on how good the Summer has been!

March 15th:

None of the seeds that I planted in my windowsill propagator have germinated yet and I got impatient so I decided to try and sprout some more using a different method. This is a slightly amended version of the plastic bag method that I used last year.

I’d kept a clear plastic pot with a lid (from some foodstuff that I can’t remember what it was!) and I thought it would be perfect because I can easily remove the lid if I need to moisten the tissue later.

I just got one sheet of kitchen towel and made it wet, then I placed my seeds on the wet towel and folded it in half. Then I put the towel inside the pot and put the lid on. I’ve put the pot right next to the radiator as the seeds need a high temperature to germinate. Fingers crossed this will work and then I will transplant the seedlings.

March 21st:

Hurrah! One of the 6 seeds I planted in the propagator has finally sprouted! I was beginning to lose all hope of ever having any chillies to harvest this year!
3 of the seeds I put into my plastic pot have also germinated, so I removed 3 of the inactive seeds from the propagator and replaced them with these sprouters. Hopefully they’ll make more progress and I’ll have a few chilli plants to nurture.

March 28th:

3 more of the seeds I put in the plastic pot germinated, so I put these into the propagator as well and now I have lots of seedlings that are doing very well. I must remember next year to use the plastic pot method as the success rate was almost 100% compared to putting the seeds straight into the soil

I can’t really use the lid of my propagator anymore as some of the other seedlings are too tall, so I’ve put the plastic pot over the chilli seedlings to keep them warm and I think it’s doing a good job.

APRIL 6TH:

The seedlings are large enough to handle so I’ve put them into 7.5cm pots. They were still delicate and I broke one, but I expected to lose some and that’s why I planted so many seeds to begin with.

The seedlings didn’t really like being transplanted as it was quite a windy day and I think they got a bit of a shock and just decided to keel over. But after a little drink of water and back in the comfort of the warm windowsill, they perked up.

APRIL 15TH:

My chilli seedlings are doing really well, so I’m absolutely chuffed as last year my chilli plants were pathetic! I now know that I planted the seeds way too late last year, so that’s why I started them ASAP this time.

This is the biggest seedling at 5cm tall and it’s developing its 5th and 6th leaves now. The other seedlings are 3cm tall and now have 4 leaves.

APRIL 18TH:

I bought some special feed for my chilli plants when we visited Wisley in March. It’s called Chilli Focus and it cost £1.95 for a 100ml bottle. I’d actually forgotten I bought it until today, but the instructions say to use on ‘young plants – from seedlings onwards’ so I thought now was the perfect time to start.

At the seedling stage you need to use 5ml of feed per litre of water (so I’ve used my spray bottle as that’s a 1 litre bottle) and to feed plants weekly. I only used about 500ml as the 6 seedlings I’ve got are still in small pots and I didn’t want to drown them. I’ll use the rest of the diluted feed next week.

The instructions also say at the ‘onset of flowering – first sign of blossom’ you can increase the feed to 10ml per litre of water and to feed weekly.

This feed is apparently a precise formulation for optimal performance of chillies. After the terrible yield I got last year, I’m taking no chances with my chillies this time! There is more information on the Growth Technology website and they also do other products.

MAY 1ST:

My chillies are looking really healthy and have grown quite a lot in the last couple of weeks. I think the feed has helped as the growth rate is quite fast:
On April 26th the largest seedling was 8cm tall and the smaller ones were 5cm tall. Today the largest is 10cm and the smaller ones are 6cm. So that’s between 1-2cm taller in just under a week.

I’ll transplant all the seedlings into bigger pots once the smaller ones reach 8-10cm.

MAY 26th:

I’ve been so busy lately that it took me a while to get around to re-potting my chillies and so far I’ve only had time to do the biggest one. It’s grown quite a lot in the last few weeks as you can see from the photo. Sam was hovering around me whilst I was gardening and got into the picture, which is actually quite a good indication of how big the chilli plant has grown.

I didn’t manage to plant it very straight in the pot, but it seems to be doing OK as buds are actually starting to develop so it’s well on its way to producing fruit!

I didn’t bother to harden off the plant when I re-potted it, I just covered it with fleece and left it outside.

I really need to get my other chilli plants re-potted as they’re almost as big as this one. I just need to get myself some more compost and more time to do it!

5th june:

I finally managed to re-pot all my other chilli plants. Since the other one survived without being hardened off, I just kept this lot covered with a fleece for about a week and there haven’t been any problems…

… apart from whatever is having a good old munch on all the leaves! I did find a tiny little snail on one of the leaves, but I can’t believe that he alone has done this much damage to so many of my plants as it’s not just the chillies that have fallen victim. Still, it hasn’t stopped them from producing flowers/fruit, so I’m not too worried.

I’m still feeding them roughly once a week with the special chilli feed I bought.

19th june:

Despite the leaves getting eaten to shreds, the chilli plants are doing pretty well and are starting to produce fruit!

I’ve got 6 plants and hopefully I’ll have a good harvest this year. Apparently you can freeze chillies, so if I have loads then I’m going to try this.

3rd july:

I was shocked to see how big the chillies have grown after returning from a week’s holiday! They’re roughly 3 inches long, but I’ve only got one chilli this size on a couple of plants so far.

I’ll probably pick them when they’re still green as this will hopefully encourage them to produce more fruit.

15th July:

I did pick 4 chillies when they were still green and I’ve used 2 in my meals. The first one was in a pasta dish and I’d removed the seeds, so it wasn’t hot at all. The second one I used in a stir fry and I left the seeds in and it was the perfect heat. I’ve got lots more chillies growing so I’m really pleased with my crop so far. I’ve run out of the chilli feed so I’ll need to get some more. I’m pretty confident it has helped my plants!

31st July:

I ran out of the Chilli Focus feed, so I started feeding my chilli plants with liquid tomato feed instead, which is recommended (I actually compared a chilli feed with a tomato feed in a shop and they basically have the same composition). I’ve been feeding them weekly but other than watering them when it’s been dry, I’ve pretty much left them to their own devices. So I was shocked when I checked on them and saw how huge some of them had grown! I’ve had a really good harvest so far having picked about 15 green chillies and there are still loads more growing. I’ll be giving some to my family when I see them and I’ll be freezing some too. Apparently you just put them into a freezer bag (must be good quality to prevent freezer burn, or even better to double-bag them) and then they can be used from frozen, especially if you chop them up before freezing.

28th August:

A few of my chillies started to get black marks on them, so I posted a question on the Chilli Lovers Group on UK Veg Gardeners asking if this was normal. I was informed that some chillies do turn black before they change to red. So I kept them on the plant to see what happened…

28th September:

…and it looks like my chillies shouldn’t turn black before they turn red! This chilli is on a plant that I brought indoors to overwinter as I read on the Chilli King website that this is possible. The chilli had started to turn red just before I brought the plant indoors and now it’s been in a nice warm room on the windowsill for a few days it is really starting to change colour even more.
So there is obviously something wrong with the ones that have black spots on them – I just wish I knew what it was!
Sorry for the awful photo, I was too goddamn lazy to get out my SLR and just grabbed my point-and-shoot, which does not perform well in low light!

23rd October:

A few weeks ago I decided to bring 2 of my other chilli plants indoors as the fruits were starting to turn red. The ones on the far right of the picture are from the first plant I brought indoors and now they are a gorgeous deep red colour. I’ve used one in my cooking and the flavour was so much nicer than when they were green in my opinion – a bit like how ordinary peppers lose their bitterness when they’re not green anymore.

The fruits on the other 2 plants are catching up so I’ll soon have quite a few nice red chillies! I’m going to chop up and freeze the ripest fruit today and then I’ll cut the stem down to overwinter the plant.

Grow your own Uchiki Kuri Squash 2010

2010-09-18T18:56:00.000+01:00

PLANT: ‘Uchiki Kuri’ Squash (Red Kuri)

A Japanese Hubbard-type squash that has very attractive orange-red skin. The yellow and creamy flesh is firm, very sweet and nutty. A very productive variety producing fruits of around 1.5kg (2-3 lbs) about 18x18cm in size that store well into winter.

I thought this variety of squash looked really sweet and I’ve read on some other blogs that it’s quite easy to grow. When I saw the blue seeds in the packet I was a bit concerned, but I’ve read that these seeds have been specially treated and coated with a fungicide to prevent wilting and other fungal problems during germination. So fingers crossed I’ll have more luck with these than last year’s butternuts.

Sow under cover:	March - May	1st Mar
Germination time:	7-10 days	10th Mar
Plant out:	June - July
Harvest:	October - November	28th Aug and 11th Sept
Time from seed to plate:	100 days

SOW:

Sow seeds on their side to prevent rotting in 8cm pots full of seed compost at a depth of 2.5cm. Cover the pots and keep them at a temperature of 15-18°C.

GROW:

Plant out when plants have grown 4 leaves, spacing them at least 1 metre apart as they will grow long trailing sideshoots.

CARE:

Water regularly and feed with a general liquid fertiliser.
When green fruits begin to swell remove some of the leaves to expose them to the sun.
You can tie the sideshoots to canes to keep them neat and they can be trained up over fences, trellises or wigwams.
You may need to pollinate by hand if the insects aren’t doing their job properly!

HARVEST:

Leave to ripen for as long as possible. Cut each fruit from the plant with the stalk still intact.

I’ve sowed my seeds in small pots filled with seed compost, then I put them inside a clear plastic bag to maintain moisture.

I’ll be growing my squash in 14 litre Tubtrugs which measure 33cm wide and 23cm tall.

Useful websites:
http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/Premier-Seeds-Direct/Squash-and-Pumpkin-Instructions.html_

March 13th:

Unfortunately I haven’t been at home all week so I missed my squash sprouting, but Steve told me my squash had sprouted sometime in the middle of the week. The two on the right of the photo are the Uchiki Kuri and they have really leaned over towards the light as I haven’t been around to turn the pots. Hopefully they’ll straighten up a bit! They’re quite a bit taller than the butternut squash already, so it will be interesting to compare the growth rate between these two varieties of squash.

March 21st:

The Uchiki squash did straighten themselves out as I’ve been turning them quite regularly. Like the butternuts they’re starting to develop their second set of leaves.

APRIL 6TH:

The seedlings look like they’re ready to plant out as they’ve got 4 leaves. But it’s still cold outside, so I think I’ll leave them inside for a bit longer. I’ve had to use a bamboo skewer to support the one on the right as it was falling over. I think this was also due to a lack of water as it did manage to stand up straight after I gave them a little drink.

APRIL 15TH:

The Uchiki Kuri seeds are growing very rapidly. The bigger one is 24cm tall x 24cm wide (how far the leaves stretch out) and the smaller one is 16cm x 16cm. They’re much bigger than the butternut seedlings and they don’t stand up without the support of the bamboo skewers.

APRIL 27TH:

I know I’m a bit early, but I decided to plant my Uchiki Kuri squash out in the raised bed today as they’re getting a bit too big for their pots. One is 30cm tall and the other is 20cm. I read a great guide on Seed to Plate about growing this type of squash and it said you can grow them up canes. I’ve made a very rough teepee out of 4 canes and planted the 2 squash plants next to them, spaced about 30cm apart and I mounded up the soil. The construction of the teepee is a little bit crude at the moment as I might add some more canes, depending on how the squash grow. I’ll add some string around the canes to give the tendrils something to grab onto later. I’ve covered the empty space in the bed with some chicken wire to deter anything digging up the soil. I’ll cover the squash with a fleece during the night for protection.

3rd July:

Well I didn’t realise that I hadn’t posted any updates on my squash since April! That is pretty bad!

As you can see from the photo, it has grown rather a lot in just over a month. This sprawling mass of leaves is what I returned to after a week’s holiday! I cut back a lot of the leaves so that the flowers/fruit were more exposed for pollination and exposure to the sun. The trailing leaves on the ground are an easy way for slugs/snails to get into the raised bed, which is what has been eating my mange tout pea plants!

Here’s a photo after I’ve got busy with the secateurs – quite a difference!

Here’s one of the squash that’s growing with the flower still attached. I’ve learned from last year not to get too excited at this early stage because the fruit can easily be lost due to them not being pollinated properly. So I will just have to keep my fingers crossed that this year will be better.

6th July:

My worst fears have come true – brown dead squash! I’m only guessing it was due to poor pollination because maybe the bees couldn’t get to the flowers underneath all those leaves before I cut them. So I quickly hand pollinated the other squash that have started to grow. I’ll be so gutted if I don’t get any squash this year!

13th July:

The squash that I hand pollinated are so far doing very well and are growing bigger! I’m not completely convinced this was the reason the others turned brown and died, as I think that I might have been overwatering my squash. Last week when it was incredibly hot, I was watering everyday, even though the soil didn’t look dry. I’d taken the advice that “squash are thirsty plants” too seriously and completely overdid it by giving them a drink when they didn’t need it. Luckily Steve’s Mum suggested I give them a break, so I haven’t watered them at all over the last few days. It rained a bit today, but I don’t think it will have done them any harm, in fact a bit of rainwater is good for plants.

I did a bit of research online today and some other people agree that overwatering can kill off the fruit. So I will be more careful in future and only water every few days, even when the weather is really hot.

31st July:

Well the squash that I hand pollinated died. So I’m still not sure if it was bad pollination or the watering that killed it.

So I started giving the plants a feed of Miracle Gro and only watered every few days. Then I noticed one of the tentacles had attached itself to the trellis on the wall and this squash had started growing. I’m pretty excited as it’s nearly the size of my fist now! I’ve got a couple more which are slightly smaller than this one, so I’m hoping that the Miracle Gro is what has made the difference and that they don’t die on me!

15th August:

I switched from using Miracle Gro to tomato feed once a week and I now have two squashes that are doing extremely well. The one I photographed on 31st July has grown much bigger and has changed to a very pleasing orange colour. I am looking forward to when they change to a red colour, as this will be a good indication that they are ready for harvesting.

I have another one which is even bigger than this one, hiding underneath a lot of leaves (so it’s a bit difficult to photograph). This contradicts my previous belief that squash need a lot of direct sunlight to grow. I am amazed at how the stems can manage to hold the heavy weight of the squash.

It has rained an awful lot over the last few days, which is great for the garden, but I’m hoping we will get enough sunshine for my two squash to finish ripening as I don’t have any others to look forward to!

28th August:

This is the larger of my 2 surviving squash. But I got a bit snipper-happy with my secateurs and whilst I was pruning a lot of the dead leaves/vines, I managed to cut this off the plant by accident! It looks quite ripe, but I think it needs to spend some more time in the sun to harden the skin. The problem is it’s been raining non-stop for the past week, so it’s not going to get much sun. I’ve left a long stalk on it and rested it on some wire to stop it sitting in the wet soil. I’m not sure if it will be OK left outside overnight – or should I bring it indoors? My poor squash needs an owner who knows what it’s doing!

11th September:

Well the squash I accidentally cut from the plant has survived being left outdoors for 2 weeks. It has been raining quite heavily, but it’s not been too cold at night and we have had some warm sunny days.

So I decided to cut the other squash as I wanted the space in the raised bed to put one of my Purple Sprouting Broccoli plants in its place, as it’s getting a bit big for its pot/trug.

As you can see there’s quite a difference in size between my 2 squashes! I’m really looking forward to tasting them as I’ve never eaten this variety of squash before.

18th September:

Today I cooked the large squash. Just out of interest I weighed them both before I started preparing it. The large one was 1.1kg and the smaller one was 863g.

When I cut it open, it looked like a squash should with a nice uniform colour and the seeds inside fully developed, so I assumed it was properly ripe. I prepared it as I do butternut squash, by scooping out the seeds and peeling it. Then I roasted half with sage and rosemary picked from the garden, drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. The other half I simmered in stock for my risotto as per this recipe I’ve made before. I wasn’t too keen on the roasted squash at first as the texture was a bit like undercooked potato (but Steve said it was OK) and the flavour was quite nutty which is what this variety of squash should taste like. This time I mixed the roasted squash with some fried bacon, ham, mushrooms and asparagus (as I’d predicted that Steve would say “Where’s the meat?”).

The puree for the risotto was good though. As I’ve never eaten a Uchiki Kuri squash before I can’t say if mine had the correct texture or flavour! Maybe I will find one in a supermarket to compare it with, as Autumn approaches and they start stocking more pumpkins/squashes for Halloween!

I don’t think I’ll be growing any squashes next year as they’re too much effort and space for such little return.

Grow your own Sprouting Broccoli 2010

2010-09-11T19:53:00.000+01:00

PLANT: ‘Purple Sprouting Early’ Broccoli

An extremely easy to grow hardy winter vegetable which crops when little else is available in the garden. Sturdy 12-18in plants produce a heavy crop of tasty purple heads and young leaves (which turn green when cooked) during late winter/early Spring. These should crop through to mid April, freeing the ground for spring crops.

I love “normal” broccoli (calabrese) but I thought I’d try sprouting broccoli as I like the idea of being able to cut off just what I need, rather than cutting off a whole head.

Useful websites:

http://www.garden-centre.org/Broccoli.htm

http://www.vegetable-garden-guide.com/growing-broccoli.html

Sow under cover:	March - May	1st Mar
Sow direct:	April - May
Germination time:	7-10 days	7th Mar
Plant out:	June - July	26th May
Harvest:	January - April
Time from seed to plate:	40 weeks

SOW:

Sow 2cm deep.
Thin out seedlings when 2.5cm tall to about 7.5cm apart in the rows.

GROW:

When the first two true leaves have formed and the plants are 7cm tall, transplant them into 7.5cm pots filled with potting compost and plant them into these pots a little deeper to just below the two leaves and water in well.
Transplant seedlings when they are 10 - 15cm tall, leaving 45cm between rows and 45cm between plants. The day before planting in their permanent position, water the soil where they will be planted. Transplant them firmly, 2.5cm deeper than when they were in their pots.

CARE:

Protect from birds and other pests.
Water regularly especially in dry conditions.
From time to time feed the growing Broccoli with a liquid fertiliser.

HARVEST:

Cut the main head early and the plants will continue to produce numerous small side heads through to late spring. Continuous steady harvesting is essential to maximise the harvest.

I’ve sowed 4 seeds indoors in my windowsill propagator, as I only expected to be able to fit 1 plant in my raised bed along with the peas, beans, tomatoes and spinach. But I might be able to plant more as I won’t have to plant out the sprouting broccoli until June/July, when hopefully some of the other vegetables will have finished cropping and been harvested.

March 7th:

The sprouting broccoli seeds were the next to germinate after the mange tout peas. They’re already 2.5cm tall and I need to prick them out into 7cm pots when they’re about 5cm tall, so I haven’t got long to wait. I will need to plant them into these pots a little deeper - to just below the two leaves and water in well.
Apparently if they get too warm then they will produce tall, weak seedlings that will not develop to there full potential, so they will need to be kept in a cool light position. This is a bit of a problem as I need to keep the propagator warm if my chilli seeds are to germinate!

March 13th:

My sprouting broccoli seedlings are looking very ropey indeed! As I haven’t been at home I haven’t been able to turn the propagator around and they’ve been leaning towards the light. They’re about the right height for pricking out into bigger individual pots but I ran out of them as I had to repot the peas and beans. Hopefully I can get some more before they outgrow the propagator.

March 21st:

I didn’t manage to get any more pots, so the sprouting broccoli are still in the propagator and they’re now 8cm tall. They’re looking slightly perkier than before and they’re developing more leaves, but I really do need to thin them out and get them into individual pots!

APRIL 6TH:

I think I was a bit late in transplanting the broccoli seedlings as they’ve had their set of true leaves for quite a while now. But I didn’t have anymore 7.5cm pots and it’s been miserable outside, so I had to put off the move. But yesterday I bought more pots and the weather was dry, if a bit windy!

The photo shows them still in the propagator and how they need support. They’re now 10cm tall and apparently they should be planted in their final positions at this height. But I’m going to leave them in their individual pots until they’re a bit bigger.

I planted them in their pots to just below the seed leaves. This means that they’re not so weak and spindly and will hopefully grow into a stronger plant.

APRIL 15TH:

Well I don’t think the broccoli seedlings have made much progress in the last 9 days. They’re 5cm tall but the leaves don’t look any bigger to me. But since they’re not meant to be planted outside until June/July I’m not too worried about their progress. I still need to decide if they’re going to be planted in the raised bed or in separate large pots.

APRIL 26TH:

Both my seedlings are dying! I’m not sure what I’ve done wrong, it’s possible I over-watered them or it’s too hot for them on the windowsill above the radiator.

Luckily Steve’s sister bought some seedlings from the market and she had too many so she gave me 3. They’re absolutely huge (18cm) compared to my pathetic specimens (6cm) so I can really see how far behind my seedlings were in terms of growth. I did have a better idea of how big the seedlings should be before planting out after watching episode 3 of the BBC programme The Edible Garden. When Alys Fowler planted out her seedlings they were much bigger than the ones Steve’s sister has given me. But fingers crossed they should be that size by June/July if I don’t manage to kill them first!

May 26th:

A few days after my last post I re-potted the sprouting broccoli plants into bigger pots. These aren’t their final pots as I believe they need quite a bit of space to grow, so I’ll probably be re-potting them a couple of times over the next couple of months before planting them in the raised bed once everything else has been harvested.

Anyway, they seemed to really appreciate the re-potting as they’ve grown quite a bit. Steve’s sister said her seedlings haven’t grown much at all because she’s kept them in the same pots as when she bought them and she was amazed at how big mine were! She’s put off re-potting hers because she wants to put them straight into large pots and she doesn’t want the hassle of re-potting in stages. But I think it’s worth the effort as these plants seem to dry out really quickly and definitely need more space to grow successfully.

[I’m sorry to say that the seedlings I grew from seed have pretty much died! I’m not sure what went wrong, but I’m just glad that I was given some healthy plants so I didn’t miss out on growing this vegetable!]

19th June:

All my PSB plants are doing really well and are growing big and strong. I’ve re-potted two of the biggest ones again today as they were drying out so quickly in their plastic pots. I put one in a Tub Trug and another in a terracotta pot. I’ve also tied them to wooden canes for support.

I’m delighted to say that one of them has produced this beautiful purple sprout already! Only another 7-10 months to wait before I get to eat any!

4th July:

I wasn’t really sure how the sprouting broccoli would grow on the plant. I’d suspected that the spears would shoot out from the middle of the plant and I was right. I’m a bit concerned that they’re growing like this already, as I thought they weren’t ready to harvest until after January. So I’m not really sure what to do!

The seeds I’d bought were an early variety, but Steve’s sister gave me these seedlings so I’m not sure what variety they are. More research will have to be done!

They’re fast outgrowing their pots, so another transplant will have to be done. Hopefully I will have some clear space in the raised bed after everything else has been harvested.

6th July:

This plant has started to flower! From what I’ve read I’m pretty sure this is not a good thing, as it means the spears are not so good for eating. So I cut them off and I left them on the kitchen counter to eat later, just to see what they were like. But when I got home I found out Steve’s Mum had fed them to the tortoise! Ah well, hopefully it enjoyed them! I’ve got more spears growing, but they’re very thin.

Steve’s sister said she doesn’t know the variety of this PSB, the label just said to harvest in the Spring. So I’m very confused!

11th July:

This is the first time I’ve grown anything from the brassica family, so the whole fight against caterpillars is a new concept.

I’ve seen plenty of the white cabbage butterflies fluttering around and they’ve been laying their eggs all over my PSB. They lay their eggs underneath the leaves, so it takes some time to turn over all the leaves to find them. Plus the eggs are absolutely tiny (shown against my thumbnail), so they’re easy to miss. They fall off the leaves very easily though, so I just run a tissue over the whole leaf to get rid of them.

The caterpillars are also very small so they’re hard to spot. This one (also shown against my thumbnail) is actually one of the bigger ones I found. Their colour is so close to that of the leaves that they are very well camouflaged. Wiping the tissue over the leaves squishes them quite effectively though!

11th September:

The neglect of my Purple Sprouting Broccoli on my blog is unfortunately indicative of the neglect they have received in the garden. I haven’t been on caterpillar patrol for a couple of months and I haven’t even looked at my PSB, so today I was quite shocked to see how badly eaten they had become. All the leaves are basically torn to shreds and when I spotted 10 (yes, 10!!) caterpillars hanging off of one completely decimated leaf, I knew that I had to take swift action! I must have spent about 15 minutes checking every leaf and swishing loads of caterpillars, all at different growing stages of their life. Hopefully it’s not too late for the plants to recover and continue growing over winter. I will have to make more effort more regularly to kill these bloody caterpillars!

Despite my lame efforts, the plants are growing quite tall and I’m pretty amazed actually at how big they are. This one doesn’t have any canes for support at the moment and it’s doing a grand job of staying upright all by itself. I’m sure I will need to add some canes soon though as it’s getting more windy outside as Autumn/Winter approaches.

I’ve moved another plant into the raised bed as it looked like it was outgrowing its pot/trug. I added some water crystals/fertiliser pellets to give it a bit of a boost…

… because some of the lower leaves are turning purple. I have no idea if this is normal or a nutrient deficiency, because some plants do change colour when the seasons change. For example the leaves on my blueberry bushes change from green to all shades of red and brown in the Autumn. I’ll have to do a bit more research on why the leaves on Purple Sprouting Broccoli turn purple, which isn’t an easy search on Google, as you just get pages on Purple Sprouting Broccoli!

Sticky Plum Flapjacks

2010-08-30T17:45:00.001+01:00

MUNCH RATING: 5/5

I have to say that I’m really enjoying all the fruits that are available at this time of year, especially ones that are free! I was at my Dad’s house on Sunday and his friend brought round a big bag of plums from her tree. I’m not sure what variety they were, but I quickly asked my Dad if I could take some home as I’d had this flapjack recipe from my BBC Good Food magazine in my folder for ages and I was just waiting to acquire some lovely plums to make it!

CHANGES TO THE RECIPE:

Luckily I’d checked on the BBC Good Food website before making the flapjacks, as a lot of the reviews said the recipe contained way too much butter. So I followed the reviewer’s advice and I only used 200g instead of 350g of butter.

I only had about 2 Tablespoons of golden syrup so I made up the 3rd Tablespoon with honey. I didn’t have any walnuts so omitted them.

I used less sugar – 200g instead of 300g.

TASTE TEST:

Extremely yummy! The plums are indeed sticky and jammy and there’s just enough sweetness from the sugar to offset any sourness.

200g of butter was definitely sufficient!

The recipe below is how I made it, you can find the original here.

Oven temperature: Gas mark 6/400°F/200°C
Oven shelf: middle
You will need: square 8-inch tin, lined with non-stick baking paper

450g fresh plums, halved, stoned and roughly sliced
½ tsp mixed spice
200g light muscovado sugar
200g butter, plus extra for greasing
300g rolled porridge oats (not jumbo)
140g plain flour
2 Tablespoons golden syrup and 1 Tablespoon honey

Directions:

Heat oven to Gas mark 6/400°F/200°C. Tip the plums into a bowl. Toss with the spice, 50g of the sugar and a small pinch of salt, then set aside to macerate.
Gently melt the butter in a saucepan. In a large bowl, mix the oats, flour and remaining sugar together, making sure there are no lumps of sugar, then stir in the melted butter and golden syrup/honey until everything is combined into a loose flapjack mixture.
Grease a square baking tin about 8 x 8 inches. Press half the oaty mix over the base of the tin, then tip over the plums and spread to make an even layer. Press the remaining oats over the plums so they are completely covered right to the sides of the tin. Bake for 45-50 mins (45 minutes is fine) until dark golden and starting to crisp a little around the edges.
Leave to cool completely, then cut into 18 little bars. Will keep in an airtight container for 2 days or can be frozen for up to a month.

Cherry Pie

2010-08-30T17:16:00.000+01:00

MUNCH RATING: 5/5

In July we went to Garsons Farm in Esher and we picked some lovely cherries. I pitted them and then put them in the freezer, intending to make a cherry pie. Since it’s bank holiday weekend and the weather has been a bit miserable, I thought it was the perfect time to make my pie.

I already knew I was going to use my favourite sweet pastry recipe - pâte brisée – but I made a double batch so I could freeze some to use for another pie. I made the pastry the day before and kept it tightly covered in the fridge. Then I took it out of the fridge about 30 minutes before I needed to use it, to allow it to soften up to make it easier to roll out.

But it took me a little longer to find a recipe I liked for the filling. Nearly all of the recipes I found said to just mix the cherries with sugar, some cornflour and other flavourings and place straight onto the prepared raw pie crust. But I didn’t like this idea as I thought it might be too watery and make the pastry soggy.

Then I found a recipe on The Food Network website and the method of cooking the cherries first with the sugar and cornflour until the mixture was nice and thick seemed ideal. I didn’t have enough cherries, so I adapted the recipe quantities by reducing the amount of sugar and cornflour.

My filled pie before baking – the filling is thick and delicious!

Since I had less cherries than the recipe stated, I used a slighter smaller 7-inch metal pie dish.

My pie took longer than 50 minutes to bake – more like 70 minutes – as the pastry underneath was still a little bit underdone. But after 50 minutes the top looked really lovely and golden brown, so to stop it burning I covered the pie with some foil.

TASTE TEST:

This was the first time I’d ever made a cherry pie and I was pretty impressed. The recipe for the filling was incredibly easy and it worked a treat. I will definitely use this method for other fruit pies, as I have a stash of blackberries and blackcurrants in the freezer.

Everyone liked the pie, although Steve said the cherry flavour could have been stronger – but he thinks this is because he’s used to a very synthetic cherry taste from shop-bought products. I personally thought it tasted quite strongly of cherries!

Sadly I’ve not got any more cherries in the freezer, but I will try using Hartley's Fruit Filling Black Cherry which comes in tins, as I’ve read it’s very good.

The recipe below is how I made my pie – you can find the original recipe on the The Food Network website.

Oven temperature: Gas mark 5/375°F/190°C
Oven shelf: middle
You will need: round 7-inch tin

Sweet Pastry Ingredients (makes enough for 2 pies):

500g plain flour
30g sugar
2 large eggs
200g butter, chilled

Sweet Pastry Directions:

Sift the flour into a large bowl and make a well in the centre.
Put the sugar, butter and eggs in the well and gently rub into the flour with your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs, then press the dough together to form a ball of dough until it is smooth and pliable.
It’s a good idea to let you pastry rest before cooking. You can either roll the dough out on a lightly floured board until it is about 3mm thick and line your tins and then chill in the fridge for about 30 minutes, or stick the whole lot of dough in the fridge to use the next day.

Filling Ingredients:

3 cups frozen cherries
½ cup granulated sugar
3 Tablespoons cornflour
½ Tablespoon butter, to dot
1 Tablespoon granulated sugar, to sprinkle

Filling Directions:

Place cherries in medium saucepan and place over heat. Cover. After the cherries release considerable juice, which may take a few minutes, remove from the heat.
In a small bowl, mix the sugar and cornflour together. Pour this mixture into the hot cherries and mix well.
Return the mixture to the stove and cook over low heat until thickened, stirring frequently. Remove from the heat and let cool. If the filling is too thick, add a little water, too thin, add a little more cornflour.

Assembly Directions:

Preheat the oven Gas mark 5/375°F/190°C.
Use your favourite pie dough recipe. Prepare your crust. Divide in half. Roll out each piece large enough to fit into an 7-inch pan.
Pour cooled cherry mixture into the crust. Dot with butter. Moisten edge of bottom crust. Place top crust on and flute the edge of the pie. Make a slit in the middle of the crust for steam to escape. Sprinkle with sugar.
Bake for about 50-70 minutes. Remove from the oven and place on a rack to cool.

ukveggardeners.com

2010-08-29T20:57:00.000+01:00

I follow a great blog called My Tiny Plot and the owner of that blog, Gillian Carson has set up a fantastic site called UK Veg Gardeners. It’s basically a place where people who love gardening can meet and interact with other gardeners to share information, their photos and anything else they like!

I’ve already found it incredibly useful, by being a member of the Chilli Lovers Group, as to why my chillies were developing black patches. I thought they were diseased or dying, when in fact this is a sign that they are turning from green to red! I posted a question and I got a reply from another member extremely quickly.

I’m just waiting for someone to help me with my squash and tomato problems!

I’ve only been a member for about a week, but it’s been brilliant so far and I recommend you to join!

Chocolate fudge brownies with Chocolate Drizzle

2010-08-29T20:42:00.000+01:00

MUNCH RATING: 5/5

Even though I thought I’d found the perfect brownie recipe with my Best Ever Chocolate Brownies recipe, I still like to try new recipes to see if there is one better.

Steve’s Mum picked me up a recipe card from Tesco’s for their Dark Chocolate Fudge Brownies with Chocolate Drizzle and it looked extremely good. I liked the fact it contained less sugar (I always add less than the recipes state anyway) and a bit more flour. Even though I like brownies to be squidgy, they can sometimes be too squidgy and almost runny.

CHANGES TO THE RECIPE:

As I stated, I used less sugar – 200g instead of 225g – and I used a mixture of half soft brown sugar and half caster sugar.

I didn’t have enough dark chocolate, so I substituted some with milk chocolate, which I think gives a good balance anyway. The milk chocolate was used for the chunks mixed in at the end and also for the chocolate drizzle. I didn’t need to add any water to the drizzle as it was runny enough.

I used a different sized tin than what the recipe stated. I used a 9-inch square metal disposable box which are the perfect size for baking brownies as they’re quite deep. I lined the tin first with a strip of non-stick baking paper to make the brownies easier to remove.

TASTE TEST:

Everyone loved these brownies and Steve’s Mum said they were the best she’d ever tasted! So I think I’ll be using this recipe from now on!

I think I could reduce the sugar even more next time, especially as I used part milk chocolate which is quite sweet anyway.

I’ve written the recipe as I made it – you can find the original on the Tesco website.

Oven temperature: Gas mark 4/350°F/180°C
Oven shelf: middle
You will need: square 9-inch tin, lined with non-stick baking paper

Ingredients:

For the brownies

175g (6oz) plain chocolate, broken into pieces
140g (5oz) butter, cut into pieces
3 large eggs
100g (4oz) caster sugar
100g (4oz) soft brown sugar
100g (4oz) plain flour
1tsp baking powder
1tbsp cocoa powder
50g (2oz) milk chocolate, chopped into little chunks

For the chocolate drizzle icing

25g (1oz) milk chocolate, broken into pieces
2tbsp double cream
½ tsp golden caster sugar

Directions:

Preheat the oven to Gas mark 4/350°F/180°C. Line a 9-inc square tin with non-stick baking paper.
For the brownies: Place the dark chocolate into a small heavy-based pan with the butter. Melt over a low heat, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.
When the chocolate has cooled, whisk the eggs and sugar together in a large bowl using an electric hand mixer, until thick, pale, fluffy and almost doubled in volume. Pour in the cooled chocolate, then gently fold in. Sift over the flour, baking powder and cocoa and gently fold in. Carefully stir in the chopped milk chocolate, without over-mixing.
Pour the mixture into the lined tin and lightly spread it into all the corners. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the middle is just set and the top is slightly crusty. (If still wobbly in the centre, leave a bit longer.) Remove and leave until completely cold before removing from the tin.
For the icing: Put the chocolate into a small heavy-based pan with the cream and sugar. Melt over a low heat very briefly, just until the chocolate starts to melt, removing it before it boils. Drizzle over the brownies (I found using a whisk was the best way to get a random drizzle) then, when set, cut into 16 squares.

Cook's Tip

Leave the brownies in the tin until completely cold, as they'll crack if turned out too early.

Grow your own Mange Tout Peas 2010

2010-08-15T15:20:00.000+01:00

PLANT: ‘Oregon Sugar Pod’ Mange tout/Snow pea

The pods are large and flat (4½ inches long by ¾ inch wide) and stringless when young. They grow on extremely hardy 3 foot vines which are high yielders and hold their colour well. This pea variety is extremely disease resistant and high in Vitamins A, B and C.

I love mange tout and I decided to grow these instead of “normal” peas because it seems like such a waste of time/effort/food to pod them.

Sow under cover:	February - May	26th Feb
Sow direct:	March - June
Germination time:	7-10 days	First 2 sprouted 2nd Mar
Plant out:	May – June
Harvest:	May - October	3 peas on 17th June!
Time from seed to plate:	68 days

SOW:

Don’t plant where you have grown beans or peas during the previous couple of years.
Indoors: sow in pots or guttering 5cm apart, cover with 2.5cm of soil then water and keep under cover.
Outdoors: sow 5cm (2in) deep in 15cm(6in) wide rows 5cm(2in) apart.

GROW:

When seedlings are about 8cm tall, transfer seedlings outside. If you used guttering then slide the whole lot (seedlings plus compost) into a shallow drill that you’ve dug, firm them down and water.

CARE:

Stake for support and to allow plants to climb.
Protect immediately from birds. Pinch out the top shoot of each plant as soon as the first pods are ready and harvest regularly to encourage new pods to grow.
Don’t overwater in the early stages of growth, as this will encourage them to produce too many leaves. As soon as flowers appear, give the plants more water.

HARVEST:

Crops over a period of 4–6 weeks. Begin cutting pods at about 7.5cm/3" when the peas are just beginning to develop. Pick regularly to prevent pods fully maturing on the plant.

March 2nd:

My first seed to sprout was a pea! I was so surprised when I checked on them this morning and saw this little sprout as it’s only been 3 whole days since I planted them! I sowed 7 pea seeds and only one has sprouted, so we’ll see if the others will soon follow…
… just been to check on them this afternoon and another one has sprouted!

March 7th:

I am genuinely shocked at how fast the peas have grown in the past 5 days! The tallest one is already 5cm tall and according to the experts they should be planted out when they’re about 7.5cm. The roots on some of them are really long already, so I think I’m going to have to transplant them into their own small pots. But this will have to wait until next weekend as Steve and I are house-sitting for his sister this week.

March 13th:

Like my French beans, the peas have been some of the fastest growing plants I’ve ever seen. At around 12cm tall, they were touching the cover to my windowsill propagator by the time I came home and I had to re-pot them as it’s still too cold outside. The roots were really long, so the propagator did a good job. I was worried that I would disturb all the other seedlings by removing the peas and beans, but I just used a pen to poke them out from the bottom and they were just like plug plants you can buy.

Apparently the pea shoots are good to eat, so later I might sow some more seeds just for this purpose, especially as they’re so easy to grow.

March 21st:

The peas have come quite a long way in the past week with the leaves opening up and developing a pretty white pattern. The tendrils are starting to sprawl as they search for something to latch onto.

I really need to plant them out as they’re now 18cm tall and starting to droop, so I’ve had to stick bamboo sticks (the kind you use for cooking) as a temporary support. I started the ‘hardening off’ process today by leaving them outside during the day and bringing them in at night, so they get used to a change in temperature and it’s not so much of a shock when they get put outside permanently.

March 25th:

Like my French beans, the peas haven’t really appreciated being put outside as it’s been too windy. So I put them in a trug to give them a bit more protection and they seemed a bit happier with this situation! It’s raining for the rest of this week, so I don’t think I’ll be putting them outside very much, mainly because I don’t want to go out in the rain!

APRIL 6TH:

I’m a bit worried about my peas. They’re looking a very sickly pale green colour and some of the leaves are shrivelled and turning brown. It’s possible that they need more light as I’ve been keeping them off the windowsill. I’ve read that it’s possible they need more nitrogen, which isn’t surprisingly as I planted the seeds in seed compost and they’ve probably used up all the nutrients by now. Or it could be a lack of/too much water. I’m not very good at judging the thirst levels of plants!

I tried hardening them off again today but it’s still so cold and miserable that I’m scared it will kill them off! I think I will have to be brave and just commit to hardening them off this week and planting them outside at the weekend. If they all die then at least I will still have time to sow more seeds indoors or even try sowing some direct, so all will not be lost. It’s just a shame to see something you’ve grown from seed die!

APRIL 9TH:

I started hardening off the peas again yesterday as it was lovely and warm! They looked a bit parched so I gave them some water and I don’t think they liked it very much as this was the result for half of the seedlings. So I’ve only got a couple left that look vaguely salvageable. I think I’ll plant these tomorrow in the raised bed and cover them with one of my large propagator lids to keep them warm at night, as I’m getting a bit fed up of taking them outside and bringing them in at night. If they die, then they die. I’ll be sowing more directly in the soil anyway.

APRIL 10TH:

For the peas I stuck 3 canes into the raised bed in a straight line, then tied them together at the top with a rubber band. I only had 4 seedlings that looked healthy enough to plant and I planted them in a staggered row, but then I managed to bend one (second from the right) so I’ve probably killed that one too! I tied string across the canes to give the pea tendrils something to latch onto, if they survive my brutal transplanting!

APRIL 13TH:

2 of the seedlings died, so I dug them up and planted 2 more seeds in their place today.

APRIL 19TH:

Only two of my pea seedlings survived the transplanting, but then I found today that something has picked off the leaves on one of them! (right-hand photo). I’m a bit annoyed as I’ve tried my best to keep away any birds by covering the peas with fleece at night and I’ve tied a CD across the canes the peas and French beans as that apparently scares the birds. So today I upped my defences and wrapped some really fine mesh that I kept from a photoshoot I helped Steve’s sister on. It was for a kid’s garden party theme and she bought the mesh from a haberdashery. It’s got a special name but I can’t remember what it’s called. But hopefully it will do the trick!

APRIL 27TH:

I was starting to think that the 2 new seeds I’d planted on the 13th were never going to germinate, but yesterday I noticed that they had both sprouted and are on their way up! Hopefully they will be stronger and healthier having been started directly in the ground, as all the messing around with hardening off my indoor sown seeds did not go down very well.

But the one indoor grown seedling that did survive is actually making progress! It’s reached the first line of string that I’d tied between the canes and the tendrils have taken hold. The blue mesh seems to be doing its job of deterring the pigeons or whatever was eating my precious peas!

may 26th:

I am so chuffed with how well my mange tout peas are doing. I’ve basically left them to their own devices and just watered them when the weather has been hot. They’ve happily climbed up the netting, although I have detangled a few of the tendrils so that they’re not completely stuck to the netting as I will need to remove it when the time comes to picking the peas.

So I now have 5 healthy pea plants and they’re at different growth stages, which is good as hopefully I won’t have too many peas to pick all at once.

I think next year I won’t bother starting off seedlings indoors as they grow so fast and it’s a bit of a pain to keep them happy before planting out. It was so much easier just to plant them directly into the bed and leave them to it.

5th june:

I am so behind with my gardening and blogging it’s untrue! Working full time in London means I hardly have any time to go out into the garden after getting in from work and cooking dinner.

But the peas seem to be doing fine without any help from me - here’s the first flower that grew on my strongest plant…

17th june:

And here’s the start of a mange tout pea growing! I got quite excited about this and ran to get my camera. As I was searching around for more of these little peas growing, I spotted these…

As I said, I haven’t had time to properly tend to any of my vegetables, so I totally missed these growing! They were lower down on the plant than the new ones growing.

I tasted one raw and it was absolutely delicious – so sweet!

I cooked the other 2 and it just so happened that I was cooking some shop-bought mange tout tonight. So I cooked them separately and did a taste test. Steve and I both agreed the home-grown ones were far superior and I can’t wait for more to grow!

Interestingly, they were much lighter in colour than the shop-bought ones.

19th June:

Today I pulled up my my French Bean plant because it had snapped in half due to my rather aggressive handling, so in its place I sowed three Mange Tout Pea seeds. Hopefully this will mean that I will have quite a long season of picking lots of the lovely sweet and crunchy peas.

I also pinched out the top (meaning: cut off the top) of the plants that are already producing peas. This is so the plants put all their energy into producing the peas, rather than putting all their effort into growing taller.

3rd july:

Returned from a week’s holiday to find a handful of peas had grown rather large! They felt quite thick and tough, so I didn’t think they would be good for eating as all the advice I’ve read says they need to be picked before they grow too big. But I opened up some of the pods and I ate some of the peas inside raw – they tasted incredibly sweet. Steve said we should try the whole mange tout pods cooked, so I chucked them in the pan with some instant noodles and they were absolutely fine.

Unfortunately a snail got into my raised bed and has munched its way through my established pea plants. Surprisingly it hasn’t touched the 3 new plants that have grown from the seeds I planted on the 19th June.

15th August:

Today I cut down the 3 plants that I’ve been harvesting from, as they’ve come to an end now the plants have turned all yellow and the peas are growing rather deformed! I’ve left the roots in the soil as all the advice I’ve read says that this will leave the nitrogen in the soil as they break down.

My 3 new plants are growing well and have started flowering, so hopefully I will still be able to harvest lovely mange tout peas over the next couple of months. This is the great thing about successional sowing, however next year I would like to have at least 6 plants growing at the same time, so that I can pick a decent amount for one meal. Apparently you can’t plant peas in the same space for the next couple of years, so I’ll have to try growing them in my tub trugs next year.

Grow your own Tomatoes 2010

2010-08-15T15:11:00.000+01:00

PLANT: ‘Gardener’s Delight’ Cherry Tomato
TYPE: Cordon/Indeterminate = remove side shoots

It is a very reliable and prolific greenhouse or outdoor type, with long trusses of sweet bite-sized fruits. Has gained the Award of Garden Merit (AGM) by the RHS.

Since I had so many seeds leftover from last year and I had relative success with the Gardener’s Delight variety, I decided to grow them again this year.

Sow under cover:	February - April	26th Feb
Germination time:	7 – 14 days	7th Mar
Plant out:	April - June
Harvest:	June - October
Time from seed to plate:	65 days

SOW:

Sow seeds thinly in seed trays or modules. Cover with a thin layer of compost and water carefully from underneath if possible.
Ideal temperature for germination is 18°C and when seedlings appear move to somewhere with bright light and a constant temperature of 21-27°C.

GROW:

When the 1st set of true leaves appear (after the initial pair of ‘seed’ leaves) and the plants are 10-15cm tall, transplant into small individual pots 5mm below the height of the ‘seed’ leaves.
Plant out 45cm apart when the plants are 20cm tall and they have flowers on the lowest truss.

CARE:

Feed weekly with high potash/tomato feed once first truss has set (flowers have formed fruits).
Water regularly, little and often.
Stake for support and pinch out sideshoots/growing tip.

HARVEST:

Leave on the vine until they are fully ripe and ready to eat.

Useful websites:
How To Prune Tomato Plants

March 7th:

After I turned up the heating the tomatoes started to sprout.

March 13th:

The tomatoes are making good progress with the initial pair of ‘seed’ leaves opening up. I planted 2 seeds per module and as you can see both seeds have sprouted. So when I come to re-pot them I will separate them.

March 21st:

The tomatoes are coming along nicely and are starting to develop their first true leaves. Where there were 2 seeds that sprouted in 1 module I have cut down the weaker one. They’ve got a bit of growing to do before transplanting into individual pots.

APRIL 6TH:

I finally transplanted all my seedlings into small pots as they’ve all developed true leaves and they were 10cm tall. I should have planted them in the compost 5mm below the height of the ‘seed’ leaves, but I had so many other seedlings to pot up and my legs and back were aching from crouching down (I really need a nice potting bench!) so I couldn’t be bothered to mess about getting the measurement right! I can always add a bit more soil later on if they need more support.

APRIL 15TH:

The tomato seedlings are doing extremely well. They’re now roughly 12cm tall and they’re well on their way to reaching the right height for planting out (20cm) in June when they have formed flowers.

MAY 1ST:

The fastest growers of the month have to be the tomatoes. On April 26th the tallest ones were 20cm and now they’re 30cm. The smaller ones are 20cm and it’s interesting at the height difference, even though I’ve been treating them the same.

4th July:

I knew I was far behind with my blogging but I didn’t realise my last post on the tomatoes was in May! I planted them out sometime in June but I haven’t fed them yet. I will do so later today as they have started to set fruit. I will need to take more photos of the plants as they look nothing like the photo I took in May!

6th July:

It’s really hard to take photos of my plants in our garden because there’s so much green stuff everywhere! No matter which angle I tried to take this photo there were trees or plants in the background and I couldn’t be bothered to move 3 tall plants (I would have probably broken them in half by accident) so I’m sorry it’s really difficult to see my tomato plants.

Here’s an update:

They are pretty tall and kept falling over on windy days. So I had to put in another supporting cane and tie the plant to it securely.

They didn’t look that healthy as some of the leaves were yellow and all curled up. So I started to feed them with tomato food and they looked a bit better.

I think the pots are too small as they dry out quite fast. I put a watering spike tube into the soil so that when I water them, it goes straight down to the roots. I removed all the lower leaves below the fruit trusses.

I’m not very happy with my tomato plants this year and I have a feeling I won’t get many fruits. But I will persevere and keep my (not-so-green) fingers crossed that I’ll get at least some I can make a salad with!

31st July:

Well I was a bit premature in thinking that my tomato plants wouldn’t produce many fruits, as they’re all doing pretty well now. Each plant only has a couple of branches, but they’re full of fruits and one has started to turn red today.

15th August:

I’ve eaten a couple of tomatoes that fell off and I allowed to ripen on the windowsill. They were very sweet and juicy, so I was looking forward to tasting the rest. But they don’t look particularly healthy right now. I’m not sure if it’s the vast amount of rain we’ve had in the last few days that has caused these brown spots on the fruit, or if they are diseased. The leaves are all curled up and have black spots on them (I should have taken a photo!) and I should really cut them off and dump them.

Squash potstickers

2010-08-14T12:04:00.000+01:00

MUNCH RATING: 3/5

Now that I’m working full time I really don’t have a lot of time for cooking and blogging. As soon as Steve and I get in from work I cook something quick and simple and I just don’t have the inclination to faff about photographing the dish.

But I made these potstickers last weekend. I had some leftover butternut squash that I’d simply roasted in the oven. I mashed it up and chucked in some finely home-grown sage (all the plants are doing well – still need to update those blog posts!) and some salt and pepper. Then I filled the gyoza wrappers (these were frozen but they only took a couple of hours to thaw out on the kitchen counter) and folder them in half and sealed with water.

I think I’ve finally got the knack of cooking potstickers. I heated some oil in a pan and put about 5 dumplings in and cooked them for about a minute on each side until they were nicely browned. Then I added about 2 tablespoons of water and clamped on a lid and cooked for about 3 minutes (I’d cook for longer if the dumplings contained raw meat) until all the water had disappeared. Then I put them in the oven on a low heat to keep warm.

Technically these aren’t really potstickers as I used a non-stick pan so they didn’t stick – I just find it easier this way.

TASTE TEST:

I served them with some ketchup manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce) and because the butternut squash was sweet, it was all a bit too sweet! But they did taste nice, we just prefer meaty dumplings!

Blueberry Crumble Cake

2010-07-31T20:08:00.000+01:00

MUNCH RATING: 5/5

In the Isle of Wight Steve and I found this little eating place by the crazy golf in the Rylstone Gardens. They had loads of lovely looking cakes and we tried a Cherry Crumble Cake the first time we went there. It was so nice that we went back and tried the Apple Crumble Cake, which was just as nice. I said I would try and recreate something similar when we got home.

I found a recipe in my BBC Good Food 101 Cakes and Bakes book for Blackcurrant Crumble Squares and I’ve adapted it.

CHANGES TO THE RECIPE:

Instead of blackcurrants I used blueberries as we had a lot in the fridge to use up, but I only used half the amount the original recipe stated. I used a 10 inch round silicone tin instead of a 12 x 7 inch oblong tin.

For the crumble topping I reduced the amount of plain flour and added some ground almonds and omitted the lemon zest as I didn’t have any. I also reduced the amount of sugar in both the cake and the crumble topping.

TASTE TEST:

Everyone loved this cake! Even Steve’s Mum loved it even though she’s not a fan of crumble. The cake was lovely and soft and moist and the crunchy crumble topping made a great contrasting texture.

This cake was a lot thicker than the slices we ate in the IOW, but it was still really good.

Oven temperature: Gas mark 4/350°F/180°C
Oven shelf: middle
You will need: 12 x 7 inch oblong tin or 10 inch round tin or 9 inch square tin, lined and greased if not using silicone

Ingredients:

for the cake:

115g softened butter (I used Stork Margarine in the tub)
150g caster sugar
1 egg
280g self raising flour
125ml milk
100g blueberries

for the crumble:

100g caster sugar
70g plain flour
15g ground almonds
50g butter (I used Anchor)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to Gas mark 4/350°F/180°C.
Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl with a wooden spoon (or electric hand whisk) until pale and fluffy, then whisk in the egg and beat until incorporated.
Sift the flour into the bowl and pour in the milk, then carefully fold them into the mixture until fully combined but do not overmix.
Spoon into the prepared tin and spread evenly, then sprinkle the blueberries on top.
Mix together the sugar, flour and ground almonds. Rub in the butter until the mixture is crumbly, then sprinkle on top of the blueberries.
Bake for 45 minutes until the topping is golden and crunchy.
Leave to cool in the tin.

Grow your own Carrots 2010

2010-07-15T20:47:00.000+01:00

PLANT: ‘Early Nantes’ Carrots

Carrot Early Nantes is a second early and maincrop Nantes (tapered stump) type. It is virtually coreless with good texture, colour and flavour.

These are the same seeds I planted last year without any success. I tried to grow them in my raised bed and the seeds did sprout but the carrots were absolutely tiny. It didn’t help that something dug a big hole and disturbed all the seeds.

Sow direct:	March-July	23rd Mar
Germination time:	7-10 days	a few days before 9th Apr!
Ideal temperature:	10°C
Harvest:	May-October
Time from seed to plate:	12 weeks

SOW:

Carrots love light, stone free, well drained, fertile soils with plenty of well rotted organic matter in them.
Sow as thinly as possible to avoid having to thin them out later, as this disturbs the roots and attracts carrot fly, which causes reddish leaves that wilt, then turn yellow.
Don’t sow where you’ve grown potatoes, beetroot, parsnips, celery, aubergines, tomatoes or peppers in the previous year.
Sow every few weeks for a continuous supply, in rows spaced a trowel blade apart.

GROW:

Once seedlings appear gently pull out the weaker plants, leaving one carrot every couple of cm.
When the carrots are around 8-10cm high, thin out the row to leave at 5cm spacing for larger carrots, the carrots you pull up for this thinning can be eaten.

CARE:

Water sparingly but be careful not to let the soil dry out. Water them first thing in the morning with a deep soaking, every few days.

Feed the carrots twice, first when they are about 8cm tall and again when they are about 15cm tall.

HARVEST:

Plan to harvest before carrots fully mature, as they are more tender when picked earlier. Carrots mature 65 to 85 days after seeds are sown.

Useful websites:

http://www.onepotpledge.org/pdfs/carrots.pdf

March 23rd:

So I’m trying to grow carrots again, this time in a trug. I made some holes in the bottom using a chisel that Steve found for me and it made perfect holes. I then put some crocks (a broken bowl that I accidentally smashed!) over the holes so they wouldn’t get blocked. I filled the trug with multi-purpose compost, then put a thin layer of seed compost on top.

I drew a line to divide the trug into 2 sections as I plan to sow some more seeds at a later date. I thinly sowed the seeds on the top section, as marked by a bamboo skewer! Then I covered the seeds with a thin layer of seed compost and watered using a sprayer.

I used a large fleece bag to cover the whole trug for a number of reasons: to stop anything trying to dig, to increase warmth, and to prevent carrot fly.

APRIL 9TH:

I’ve not checked my carrots since I sowed the seeds, so I was pleasantly surprised to see loads had sprouted! As you can see I didn’t sow them very evenly, so I will have to thin them out. It just goes to show that random scattering is not a good idea!

Hopefully keeping the fleece over them will keep the carrot fly out. I thought I would need to water them, but the compost was very moist already. It has been raining all over the Easter weekend and the sun only started shining properly yesterday.

APRIL 19TH:

The carrots are doing really well and I’m chuffed because I didn’t get to eat any home-grown carrots last year. I thinned them out last week, pulling maybe 20-25 of them out so that they were 2cm apart. They’re roughly 2-3cm tall now so hopefully the extra space is all they’ll need to keep growing bigger and bigger. Today was the first time I’ve watered them and I did it with the fleece cover still on so that they only get a light sprinkling as the compost is still pretty moist. I think the fleece has been brilliant and I will definitely grow them in the trug again covered with fleece.

APRIL 27TH:

I only check the carrots roughly once a week as I keep the fleece over them all the time. So I was surprised to see that the tops now have the delicate fronds forming already.

somewhere between May and June:

I removed the fleece! I’m sorry I never recorded the actual date of this event. I’ve become very slack with my blogging since I started my new job!

4th July:

I wasn’t sure when I’d know when I’d be able to pull up my carrots, but after closer inspection I can see the top of one. It doesn’t look very big or orange at the moment, so I think I’ll leave them another couple of weeks.

6th July:

The carrots are starting to turn orange! I always get excited when I see something suddenly change in the garden. I am resisting the urge to pull these carrots, but I don’t know how long that will last as I really am curious as to how long they’ve grown. I would really like to be able to pull a big bunch of carrots out all at once, as I’d like a substantial side for my dinner and it would also make a good photo!

Here’s a photo of the lovely green fronds.

15th July:

I pulled my first lot of carrots today! As you can see they’re quite small, but they were perfect for the stir fry I was making. We tried some raw and they tasted pretty good!

I also used one of my home-grown chillies. I’d previously used one in a pasta sauce but I took out the seeds and it wasn’t very hot, so this time I left the seeds in and it was the perfect heat.

Here’s my stir fry and a quick recipe for 2 people:

Thinly slice one piece of rump steak and marinate in a heaped tsp of cornflour mixed with enough light soy sauce to make a paste. Meanwhile chop up some garlic, spring onions, mushrooms, carrots, green chilli and any other veg you have grown/lurking in the fridge.

Heat up some oil in a wok until it’s smoking hot, then fry the beef until brown on all sides. Remove from the pan and set aside. If necessary add some more oil to the pan and fry the garlic, spring onions and chilli, then add the mushrooms and fry until brown. Chuck in the carrots and other veg and cook for a few minutes, then add a good glug of oyster sauce, some brown sugar, some soy sauce and some shaoshing wine. Bubble away and then add some udon noodles (that have had hot water poured over them to loosen them and then drained) and the beef. Stir well to make sure everything is coated and serve immediately.

Grow your own Potatoes 2010

2010-07-11T21:26:00.000+01:00

Sow indoors:	February-March
Sow outdoors:	March-April	20th April
Harvest:	Late June
Time from seed to plate:	First Earlies: 100-110 days Second Earlies: 110-120 days Maincrops: 125-140 days

SOW:

Sow in a sheltered spot. Next to a wall is perfect.
If growing in a bag: Roll down the plastic and puncture a few holes in the bottom for drainage. Set 3-5 tubers spaced well apart with the sprouts facing up, on top of 6-8in/15-20cm of good quality compost and then cover the tubers with a further 4in/10cm layer of compost, then water thoroughly.

GROW:

As the plant grows and shoots emerge above the surface, add more compost to cover the shoots, gradually unrolling the bag. Repeat as needed until the compost is about 2in/5cm below the top of the bag.
Eventually the bag will be nearly full and you can leave the plants to grow above the surface.

CARE:

Water regularly, the compost should be uniformly moist but not wet. An occasional heavy watering is better than little and often as this does not get down far enough and encourages shallow rooting.
Once the foliage has developed, feed with a high potash fertiliser to increase yields. Avoid fertilisers high in nitrogen as these will delay maturity of the crop.

HARVEST:

Harvest times depends on lots of factors, however, in general terms first earlies are best harvested in small quantities and eaten straightaway when fresh in June and July.
From late June the plants will flower, which means the potatoes should be ready. Cut open the bag near the bottom to harvest. Take a few at a time as you need them, leaving the rest to grow larger.

Useful websites:

http://www.onepotpledge.org/pdfs/potatoes.pdf

MARCH 21ST:

I wasn’t going to try growing potatoes this year as I’m already growing quite a few new things and I don’t have a container for them. But when I opened the kitchen cupboard where the potatoes are stored and I saw the bag of new potatoes had gone way past their best (the picture shows how far they’d sprouted in the dark cupboard) I couldn’t resist seeing how far I could take these little sprouters.

Unfortunately I don’t know what variety of potato these are as the bag just said ‘New potatoes’.

I’ve done my research and I know it’s best to chit your potato seeds before planting them. This means to allow the eyes to become strong dark chits about 2cm long.
They’d already had a good start, but if it’s too warm or too dark the chits will be pale, weak and overlong. So I put them in an egg carton and have left them on a shelf in the spare room, not in direct sunlight.

The chits need to be quite a bit darker than this before planting. I might buy another trug to plant them in, or I might just buy a bag of compost and stick them into it, which I saw Jamie Oliver’s gardener do on TV.

APRIL 15TH:

The chits are now very dark and green shoots are just starting to peek through. The chits are 2cm long, which is the right length for the seeds to be planted. But I’m still deciding where to plant them! My bag of compost has just a little bit of compost left in it (¼ full), so I think I will use that.

APRIL 20TH:

So here’s my bag of compost. I used a bamboo skewer to poke lots of holes in the bottom of the bag for drainage. Then I added some more compost so that there was about a 6-8in/15-20cm layer. Apparently you should add fertiliser at this stage, but I decided not to add any yet, as the new compost I bought is Westland Organic Vegetable Compost and it says it’s “Specially formulated to support healthy strong roots, making it an ideal choice for root vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, beetroot and onions. Plus it is a rich source of organic matter, a vital ingredient for heavy feeders that need moisture retentive soil and a constant natural source of nutrients”. So I thought there would be enough nutrients for a while.

I chose to plant 5 tubers as the compost bag can hold 75 litres, so it’s quite big. I read somewhere that for 5 tubers you should lay them out like the number 5 on a dice.

You need to plant the tubers with the chits facing upwards. After covering the tubers with compost I watered them well and then placed the bag in a sunny spot.

I then placed some chicken wire over the compost to prevent anything from digging up my newly planted spuds.

And that was it. Incredibly easy! I’m hoping that my gamble of not using specially bought tubers will pay off, as potatoes suffer from diseases such as blight and common scab (sounds nasty!).

APRIL 29TH:

Well it’s taken about 9 days for the first green shoots to appear on all the tubers that I planted. I haven’t been watering them that regularly as the weather has been a bit funny lately and there always seem to be the threat of rain. I’ve now sprinkled some more soil on top to cover the shoots.

Steve’s sister bought her potato tubers from a garden centre and she planted them in bags, but the instructions on the packet said to only cover them lightly with soil. Nevertheless, hers have started to grow shoots as well, so it looks like it doesn’t make that much difference how much soil you cover them with.

MAY 1ST:

The shoots are growing incredibly fast. I’ve had to cover them with soil twice already! Admittedly I’ve only been giving them a light covering, so I will probably have to put a lot more on each time, otherwise I’ll be doing it everyday!

11th July:

You probably thought I’d given up on my potatoes considering the lack of blogging about them! Dear oh dear! Well the shoots kept growing and growing and I kept topping up the compost until the bag was full. I watered them every now and then. I moved them away from the wall to make way for my 3-tier planter for my lettuce. Then I pretty much neglected them. The shoots were trailing all over the floor and were getting eaten left, right and centre by slugs and snails. Clumsy me managed to snaps off 3 out of 5 of the shoots.

So I thought it was about time to sort out the plants. I put a bamboo cane in the middle of the bag and then tied the shoots to it to get them up off the floor and exposed to some sunlight. I also watered them with some Miracle Gro mixed in as I’m sure the plants should have started flowering by now.

I pulled out one of the shoots that had broken just to see if there were any potatoes attached and there were 2! But they’re absolutely tiny, about the size of a pea. So I stuck it back in the soil and hoped they would carry on growing, even without any shoots/leaves.

But I poked around the soil a bit more and found this little beauty! It’s a perfectly formed new potato! It looks exactly the ones in the shops! (and no I didn’t just get one out of the kitchen and rub some soil on it!). I decided not to poke around the bag looking for more in case I disturb anymore that are growing as knowing me I’ll break up all the roots! So it looks like a solitary potato will be boiled up to go with tomorrows dinner! I’m pretty excited to see how it will taste!

Sam tries to keep cool

2010-07-09T08:31:00.000+01:00

Apparently it was the hottest day of the year today. Sam decided the coolest place to be was in the flowerbed. Whilst the water hose was on.

He squashed all the plants and flowers. Steve’s Mum wasn’t too pleased! But look how cute and happy he looks!

We think he looks like a panda. Aaaah!

Grow your own Butternut Squash 2010

2010-07-04T13:34:00.000+01:00

PLANT: ‘Waltham’ Butternut

Light tan-coloured with small seed cavities and thick, cylindrical necks without crooks. It yields heavily (approx. 3-4 fruits per plant) showing remarkable uniformity with fruits averaging 23cm long and 2kg in weight. The flesh colour is richer than others, is smooth-textured and has a unique sweet flavour, particularly after 2 months' storage.

I absolutely love butternut squash so I tried growing it last year, but I didn’t have much success. A lot of the fruits died due to lack of proper pollination and the ones that did grow to maturity weren’t very big. The variety of seed I tried last year were Hunter and they were a freebie from the BBC Dig In campaign. I’m hoping that this Waltham seed I’ve bought from Premier Seeds Direct will be better.

Sow under cover:	March - May	1st Mar
Sow direct:
Germination time:	7-10 days	10th Mar
Plant out:	June - July
Harvest:	October - November
Time from seed to plate:	100 days

SOW:

Sow seeds on their side to prevent rotting.

GROW:

Plant out when plants have grown 4 leaves, 1 metre apart

CARE:

When green fruits begin to swell remove some of the leaves to expose them to the sun.

HARVEST:

Leave to ripen for as long as possible. Cut each fruit from the plant with the stalk still intact.

March 13th:

I haven’t been at home all week but Steve told me my squash had sprouted sometime in the middle of the week. I was still surprised to see that they had grown this much though! The two at the front of the photo are the butternuts and at this stage the leaves look actually like the Uchiki Kuri ones, so luckily I labelled the pots!

March 21st:

The butternuts are starting to develop their second set of leaves. I think they haven’t grown as much as the Uchiki squash because I have been putting water in the container underneath and because I’d squashed (no pun intended!) 4 pots into the container, the butternuts weren’t touching the bottom so they couldn’t soak up the water.

april 6th:

My butternut squash plants now have 4 leaves but it’s too early to plant them out. They’re looking pretty healthy so I’ll keep them in their pots for now. If they look like they’re struggling then I might re-pot them into bigger pots.

APRIL 15TH:

I thought the butternut squash plants had grown quite a lot in the last 9 days, but comparing the photos taken on the 6th it doesn’t look like they’ve grown much. The smaller one is 13cm tall x 13cm wide (how far the leaves stretch out) and the bigger one is 15cm x 15cm. After growing butternuts last year, I’m fully aware of how much they spread so it’s not such a shock this time around!

4th July:

The frequency of my blogging has been very poor. I can’t remember when I planted out the butternut squash – sometime in mid-June I think. I lost one of the plants as I was very heavy-handed and it snapped. Steve tried to play plant doctor but sello-taping the breakage but it didn’t work.

The plant that did survive the transplanting is doing OK but not great. There was only one flower I think and it didn’t become a fruit. I’m thinking that maybe the trug is too small for it, as the Uchiki Kuri squash are doing brilliantly in the raised bed.

Grow your own Sage 2010

2010-07-04T13:24:00.000+01:00

PLANT: ‘Broad leaved’ - Salvia Officinalis

Highly aromatic perennial plant that is winter hardy. Grows to 1-2 feet and produces purple-blue flowers.

A lot of butternut squash recipes call for sage, so I thought I’d have a go at growing it.

Sow under cover:	February – May	1st Mar
Sow direct:
Germination time:	10-21 days	13th Mar
Plant out:	When no risk of frost
Time from seed to plate:	75 days

SOW:

2.5cm apart and 6mm deep. Keep the soil damp but not soaked.
Not all the seeds will germinate and the ones that do may take up to 6 weeks to germinate.

GROW:

Transplant when 4-5cm tall, thin to 30cm.
Plant out 45cm between rows and 30cm between plants when all risk of frost has passed.
It is well suited to growing in containers and will grow indoors if given sufficient light. The best place for planting sage is in full sun. Sage should be put in a well draining soil as it does not like soil that is moist all the time.

CARE:

A feed every month with general purpose liquid plant food will be enough.
After the flowers die down, prune the plant to about half it's size. Other than that, leave it to fend for itself.
In dry spells, resist the temptation to water, sage prefers dry sunny conditions.

HARVEST:

Gather leaves regularly and prune the bush lightly in July after flowering.
Collect foliage for drying before the plant has flowered – sage takes a long time to dry, but will keep for up to a year in a closed container

March 13th:

Half of my sage seeds have sprouted so I’m quite pleased about that. I might plant some more seeds directly into my herb pot outside since I have so many seeds.

March 21st:

I’m quite impressed with the speed of growth of the sage as they’re quite tall and are starting to develop another set of leaves.

Unfortunately one of the leaves had turned black so I picked it off. I’m not sure what the cause was, perhaps too much water as the soil does seem pretty soggy. You can already see the little furry hairs on this leaf, which is so characteristic of sage.

APRIL 6TH:

The seedlings were 12cm tall when I got around to transplanting them into pots, which is twice the height they should have been. They are therefore quite weak and spindly and I tried to plant them as far down as possible so that as much of the stem was beneath the compost.

APRIL 15TH:

I think the sage seedlings are doing ok. One is 8cm and the other is 10cm tall and they’re both growing new leaves.

The weather hasn’t been too great lately, so I won’t be planting them outside any time soon. In fact I’m inclined to keep growing them indoors for the next few months as they seem just too delicate to be planted out. There are just too many insects and animals that damage young plants!

MAY 1ST:

I think my sage seedlings are doing alright as they look quite healthy, except they can’t stand up straight without some support. I don’t know if they should be this tall and spindly.

They’re growing quite quick as on April 26th they were 10cm and 15cm tall and now they’re both 20cm tall (the one on the left is so droopy!).

The leaves are really starting to develop.

A few weeks ago I scattered some sage seeds around my herb pot to see if they would germinate. I didn’t expect them to sprout, but 4 seeds did sprout and so I now have quite a few seedlings growing in my herb pot too! It will be interesting to see how they develop compared to the indoor grown ones and if they will grow to be as spindly.

4th July:

This plant is one of the random seeds I planted and I’ve now re-potted. It’s looking quite healthy and in much better condition than the indoor grown plants as it’s not as spindly.

I’m quite surprised how easy sage was to grow and I now have too many plants from all those scattered seeds!

So the lesson learned: grow directly outdoors.

Grow your own Blueberries 2010

2010-07-04T13:19:00.000+01:00

This is more of an update on our two plants: the old one we’ve had since 2007 and the new one we got in 2009. You can read more about their pasts here.

17th March 2010:

New growth developing on the new plant.

11th april 2010:

Both plants are looking quite healthy: the old one is on the left in the big pot and the new one is on the right.

5th June 2010:

This is our old plant and it’s practically dead. Steve’s Mum suggested I pull it up to see the condition of the roots as she thought the vine weevil might have laid its eggs in the soil. But when we pulled up the plant we could see that it hadn’t established its roots properly in the soil as it was so easy to pull up and the roots were all brown instead of white.

I haven’t had the heart to chuck it away as I still hope it will recover! But it looks like we’ll have to get a new one.

Luckily the new plant is doing very well. It’s grown nice and tall, although I will probably prune some off the top to encourage it to bush out.

It has even started to bear some fruit!

4 July 2010:

Now some of the berries have started to change colour and are ready for picking!

Grow your own Mint 2010

2010-07-04T07:22:00.000+01:00

Steve’s Mum bought a mint plant a couple of years ago and it’s been growing very well until recently. After the Winter it didn’t seem to grow many new leaves and any that did grow were covered in yellow spots:

The plant was in a very wide and shallow pot, so I decided to check the roots to see if it had become pot-bound and sure enough it had. Many of the roots were surprisingly thick and I can see why it is recommended that mint is grown in a container, otherwise it will spread too much in your garden.

So I have re-potted the mint into a deeper pot and it’s loving it! There is loads of new growth and it looks much healthier, not a yellow spotty leaf in sight!

I feel quite chuffed that I managed to rescue the mint plant – it makes me feel slightly like a proper gardener!

Grow your own Lettuce 2010

2010-07-03T22:48:00.000+01:00

I have acquired a selection of lettuce seeds, so hopefully I will be eating a lot of varied salads this Summer!

Useful websites:

http://www.onepotpledge.org/pdfs/mixed_salad.pdf

http://www.onepotpledge.org/pdfs/rocket.pdf

APRIL 10TH:

Here’s some Lollo Rosso seeds that I had leftover from last year. I just sprinkled them randomly into my herb pot where I had some space and they’ve germinated quite nicely. I learned last year that they don’t like being moved, so I didn’t bother sowing them indoors and transplanting them this year.

Once the seedlings have grown a bit bigger I will start thinning out the smaller ones to create gaps between plants. Apparently the plants should be 20cm apart, otherwise they won't mature properly, so I will probably move 1 or 2 of them if they get really big.

Here’s a trough that I’ve half filled with compost and I’ve split into 2 sections to grow different lettuce. On the left I’ve sown Little Gem seeds in 4 corners of the space, and on the right I’ve sown a row of rocket seeds. I watered with a spray bottle so that it didn’t dislodge the seeds.

I’ve covered the trough with one of my propagator lids, mainly to prevent anything digging up my seeds as that was a big problem last year.

APRIL 19TH:

The Lollo Rosso is coming along nicely. I’ll probably start thinning them when they’re double this size, as then I’ll be able to use any thinnings for a salad or in a sandwich. The wire that you can see in the photo is my slug/snail deterrent. I pulled the wire off an old bounded diary and then just stretched it out so that it went around the whole pot. So far it’s worked a treat, along with some WD40 sprayed around the pot!

The rocket seeds have germinated and I’ve been watering them nearly every day as it’s been so warm lately. I’ll start harvesting leaves as soon as they’re as long as my thumb, as the more you pick the more will grow. You can cut a few leaves at a time or slice off the whole plant about 3cm above the surface of the soil. I’ll probably sow another row in the first week of May so I have a steady supply of leaves.

The Little Gem seeds have sprouted too. I sowed a few seeds in each corner of their section in the trough, so I will thin them out when they’re a little bit bigger. This is a Cos type of lettuce, which means it will develop a heart and become an oval shape with long crisp leaves. They will take longer to grow than the Rocket and Lollo Rosso as they are loose-leaf varieties.

MAY 1ST:

I’m really pleased at how well all my lettuce is growing. The Lollo Rosso were growing so big and had hardly any room to grow because I’d planted them so close together that I started thinning them out. I transplanted one seedling from my herb pot into my lettuce pot (in the middle section of the Little Gem) and it’s doing quite nicely now.

I also had to thin out the Little Gems as they are starting to fight each other for space. I transplanted some into my raised bed and also some in another row in the Rocket section.

The Rocket is starting to look like a rampant weed as it’s growing so fast. Even though my lettuce trough is mostly covered with a large propagator lid and I sprayed WD40 on the outside rim, a snail or slug has been having a good old munch as it left behind a telltale trail of slime as evidence!

may 26th:

The Rocket is now ready for cutting but I haven’t been at home lately to make myself a nice salad! There are still holes in a few leaves but no slime trail, so I’m not sure what’s been having a good old nibble on my lettuce.

The Little Gems are doing OK but they’ve got a little way to go before they’re ready for eating.

The Lollo Rosso that I moved into the lettuce trough has been totally eaten by something! But I’ve still got some more plants in my herb pot so all is not lost.

3rd july:

My Dad gave me a 3-tiered planter so I moved all my lettuce into it and it’s really thriving since the slugs/snails can’t climb up! I also mixed in some water retaining crystals into the compost to stop it drying out so quickly.

This is my Little Gem lettuce after I cut it right back before we went on a week’s holiday. I’m still amazed at how it can grow back with new leaves time and time again.

Grow your own French Beans 2010

2010-06-19T19:25:00.000+01:00

PLANT: ‘Cobra’ climbing French Bean

Massive crops of mid green, smooth, round, stringless pods about 18cm (7in) long with an exceptional flavour. Produces attractive mauve flowers and has a long cropping season.

I got these seeds free from Wiggly Wigglers as they were giving away free seeds last year. The good thing about this freebie was I got to choose which seeds I wanted from a selection, rather than just getting another packet of basil! I’ve never grown beans before, so hopefully they won’t be too much trouble and they’ll be happy growing next to my peas.

Sow under cover:	March - July	1st Mar
Sow direct:	April - July
Germination time:	14-21 days	7th Mar
Plant out:	May - August
Harvest:	May - October
Time from seed to plate:	Within 2-3 months of sowing.

SOW:

Don’t plant where you have grown beans or peas during the previous couple of years.
Soak for 30 mins before sowing

GROW:

Plant out when seedlings are about 8cm tall. Leave 30cm between rows and 7.5cm between plants.

CARE:

Stake for support and to allow plants to climb.
As soon as flowers appear, give the plants more water and never let the soil dry out.

HARVEST:

As soon as the pods begin to appear, start picking. The younger and smaller they are the better they taste. Keep picking regularly – 2 or 3 times a week. As long as there are still flowers on the plant, the more you pick, the more new pods will set.

Useful websites:

http://www.onepotpledge.org/pdfs/frenchbeans.pdf

March 7th:

I’m pleased that some of the French beans have started to sprout. I think soaking them for 30 minutes before sowing did help.

March 13th:

Well the French beans have gone absolutely crazy and grown to 13cm in a week! I’m supposed to plant them out when they get to 8cm tall, but it’s still too cold outside so I just re-potted them. So I’ve got 5 bean plants that will hopefully bring me lots of lovely beans!

I thought the leaves looked quite interesting as the lower ones are speckled with black. All my seedlings have this, so I’m assuming it’s normal!

March 21st:

I started the ‘hardening off’ process today for the beans as well as the peas because they are so tall now. The leaves are 23cm tall and the tall tendril at the top reaches above 40cm! I’ve used bamboo sticks as a form of support, but they really need to be outside where I will be able to use canes as support. I’ll admit that I did sow my bean seeds much earlier than the packet suggested, but I really couldn’t wait until May! Hopefully planting them outside at the end of March won’t be too bad for them.

I’ve moved the peas and beans away from the radiator as it’s too hot (left on to encourage the chillies) and I’m trying to acclimatise them to lower temperatures.

Those funny black leaves have dropped off now, so I guess they were the initial seed leaves that the plant no longer needs.

March 25th:

I’ve tried to harden off my French beans and the peas, but it’s been quite windy outside and they’ve been suffering from wind burn I think. The leaves are getting shrivelled around the edges and look wilted. Even worse, the stem of one of the beans snapped right in half! So I’m left with just 4 seedlings now. So I’m keeping them indoors until the weather improves, as they just don’t seem ready to face the great outdoors!

APRIL 6TH:

Just like my peas, I’ve been reluctant to put the beans outdoors for hardening off. The leaves are looking a bit ropey still with white spots and they’re very delicate and papery. I suspect it’s wind burn as that’s what happened to my tomato plants last year when I put them outdoors. They survived and I got lots of fruits, so I’m not too worried.

I would like to get them outdoors as they’re taking up too much space indoors and I keep breaking bits off the plants as I’m moving them around the room! I hope to get the planted outdoors this weekend.

APRIL 10TH:

I planted the French bean seedlings in the raised bed today. I formed a wigwam from 3 canes (4ft ones bought from Wilkinsons) tied together with a rubber band at the top. I only had 2 seedlings that looked healthy enough to plant, so I planted one seedling next to two of the canes. I will plant a couple of seeds directly into the soil by the third cane later.

APRIL 19TH:

The French bean seedlings are both practically dead. I don’t know if something has picked off the leaves or they just didn’t like the cold. I tried to deter any pests with these green plastic things that were once plant supports for some flowers Steve’s Mum bought last year. Plus I covered them with fleece during the night. But they really didn’t like the transition to the great outdoors. I know I sowed them too early indoors as the packet says to sow in May. But it’s been really warm lately, so I sowed 2 more seeds directly into the soil in the raised bed today. I soaked them first as that seemed to really help.

I also sowed 2 inside this toilet roll tube, which I’ve stuck inside a small pot of compost. I’ll keep these on the windowsill and hopefully I’ll have some more seedlings to plant out later.

MAY 1ST:

Unfortunately all the seedlings I planted outdoors are dead as something has eaten all the leaves. None of the seeds I sowed outdoors have germinated either.

Luckily the 2 I sowed in the toilet roll have both sprouted! On April 29th the first one sprouted and the second one sprouted today. I’m still shocked at how fast the first one has grown in less than 3 days – it’s already 10cm tall!

Hopefully I will be able to separate these 2 seedlings so they can be planted outdoors. I will make sure I harden them off properly this time and also put netting round them as this has worked for my peas as a deterrent against pesky nibblers.

19th june:

I’ve been very bad at blogging the progress of my French Beans, but that’s mainly because not much has happened. I did manage to successfully plant out one of my seedlings, but it grew very slowly and then today I accidentally snapped it in half. I have to be honest and say that I’m really quite clumsy when it comes to gardening! So I have dedicated the French Bean space to my Mange Tout Peas, which I have to say I much prefer to eat anyway.

I’m not sure if I’ll bother with French Beans again. The seeds were quite easy to germinate, but handling the seedlings was a pain as they were so tall and spindly and they broke very easily. But maybe by next year I will feel more confident and I would probably sow directly into the soil to prevent any damages from my fumbling hands!

Grow your own Spinach 2010

2010-05-26T19:26:00.000+01:00

PLANT: ‘Bloomsdale Long Standing’ Spinach

A quality Heirloom variety that remains especially notable for its high yield. Dark green vigorous leaves are large, heavy and handsomely crinkled. Because they are held erect, they remain cleaner than those of other varieties that lie flat on the ground. Slow to bolt. A very popular variety for the home garden.

Sow direct:	April-July & September-October	10th April
Germination time:	10-14 days	1st seed sprouted 11th April
Ideal temperature:	10°C
Harvest:	January-December
Time from seed to plate:	45 days

SOW:

Spinach germinates best in cool soil. Begin sowing in early spring as soon as the ground can be worked and frost free. If you sow in mid-summer in hot dry weather you run the risk of low or erratic germination. Sow in late July into September for an autumn crop.
Sow seeds 1.5cm deep, 3cm apart, in rows 30cm apart and thin when large enough.

GROW:

Sow more seeds once a month for a continuous supply.

CARE:

Water little and often to prevent bolting.
Feed with a liquid feed every 2-3 weeks.
Spinach grows on a wide range of soils if moist and fertile, but is sensitive to acidity.

HARVEST:

Harvest young spinach leaves during growth and full-size, but before bolting. Cut just below root attachment for "rooted spinach", or cut higher for "clipped spinach."

APRIL 10TH:

I sowed my first ever spinach seeds today. I laid a bamboo cane across the soil and pressed it down to create a drill 1.5cm deep and then I planted 1 seed every 3cm. The space I’ve allocated in the raised bed for the spinach is 33cm x 25cm. It’s not exactly a square foot but I’m hoping to follow the principle of square foot gardening and so I’m hoping to plant 3 rows of spinach successionally. I’m not sure how this is going to turn out, so it will be a bit of an experiment! After watering the seeds I covered them with a large propagator lid to protect them from being dug up.

APRIL 11TH:

I was really surprised to find one of the spinach seeds had sprouted already!

I wasn’t expecting anything to happen for at least 10 days. I guess the conditions were pretty perfect for it to germinate as we’ve had quite a bit of sunshine lately, but it’s still quite cool at night.

I think the propagator lid must have helped too by trapping any warmth so it was like a mini greenhouse for the seeds.

Hopefully the rest of the seeds will quickly follow suit and I’ll be chomping on fresh spinach in no time!

APRIL 19TH:

I have a little confession to make. That first seed that sprouted on the 11th doesn’t seem to be spinach at all, as 2 new seeds have sprouted and they look nothing like the other one which had small round leaves (a lot like the Rocket and Little Gem seedlings). So I feel a little silly at my over-excitement, as surely nothing can sprout overnight?! It’s probably just a weed, which is a problem as I’m not very good at identifying the weeds and I have a tendency to scatter seeds at random. But I’m 99.9% sure that these 2 seedlings are spinach as they’re both in the correct row! I sowed some more seeds yesterday in another row about 10cm from the first, as I got a bit impatient. I’m mainly growing the spinach to use in salads, so I don’t mind if they don’t grow too big, hence the small space between rows.

APRIL 27TH:

The weather has been glorious lately and the combination of lots of sun (and a little rain) has made a lot of things grow.

My first sowing of spinach is doing really well as nearly all the seeds germinated and are growing quite quickly now. A lot of the seeds from the second sowing I made on the 19th have also sprouted so I think I’ll have quite a lot of spinach in a few weeks time! But that’s all good as I’ll use them in salads as I managed to sneak some baby spinach leaves into Steve’s salad the other day and it turns out he quite liked them.

I’m still keeping the spinach covered with one of my large propagator lids, mainly to prevent anything digging up the seedlings, but it seems to be doing a great job of acting like a mini greenhouse.

MAY 1ST:

I didn’t expect to be doing a blog post about the spinach so soon, but I was excited that the new leaves are spinach shaped, which means I should be able to start picking them soon!

My Dad has started attending gardening classes and he said they planted potatoes, onions and spinach, so hopefully he can give me some tips and we can compare progress.

may 26th:

Well the spinach has come on leaps and bounds since I last posted and is now ready for eating! With the first harvest I’ll probably make a nice salad with my first cutting of my Rocket leaves. I might have to dig up a couple of spinach plants because the beetroot seeds I sowed in the available space next to the spinach have now sprouted and need more space. I will definitely grow spinach again as it’s so easy and grows really quickly.

Blueberry and Lemon Friands

2010-05-07T15:59:00.000+01:00

MUNCH RATING: 5/5

I found this recipe on the BBC Good Food website about a year ago and printed it off, but I’ve only just got around to making them as I just happened to have all the ingredients in the house. It’s a shame I never tried the recipe earlier as they are absolutely delicious. The cake is extremely light and moist and the fresh tang of lemon zest and the blueberries gives them a ‘Summer’s here!’ taste.

CHANGES TO THE RECIPE:

I used 3 large egg whites instead of medium because we only use large eggs. They had been frozen and I defrosted them overnight in the fridge, then I left them at room temperature for about an hour before using.

Instead of using non-stick friand or muffin tins, I used my new silicone cake cases that Steve’s Mum bought me from Wilkinsons. They worked really well as they held their shape when I put the cake mixture in and so I just put them on a baking tray to make it easier to get them in/out of the oven. Once baked, the cakes were easy to pop out of the silicone cases, but I did think that they retained the steam as the cakes were cooling and this made the bottoms of the cake slightly soggy.

The silicone cases are the size of fairy cakes cases, so I managed to make 7 cakes instead of 6. I have tried making these in paper fairy cases and I managed to make 12, but they were very thin/shallow and not as good as when I used the silicone cases.

TASTE TEST:

Well these went down a complete storm! Steve’s Dad doesn’t like almonds, so I warned him before he tried them that they were made of mainly ground almonds, but he tried them anyway and he said they were probably the best cakes I’ve made!

I will definitely make these again, but they will be considered a once-in-a-while treat as I think they’re expensive to make because they’re made of ground almonds and blueberries aren’t cheap either. Plus they’re just over 300 calories each!

100g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
125g icing sugar, plus extra for dusting
25g plain flour
85g ground almonds
3 medium/large egg whites
1 unwaxed lemon, grated rind only
85g blueberries

Directions:

Preheat the oven to fan 180C/conventional 200C/gas 6. Generously butter six non-stick friand or muffin tins. Melt the butter and set aside to cool (nuke in the microwave for 35-40 seconds).
Sift the icing sugar and flour into a bowl, add the almonds and stir together.
Whisk the egg whites in another bowl until they form a light, floppy foam. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, tip in the egg whites and lemon rind, then lightly stir in the butter to form a soft batter.
Divide the batter among the tins (using a jug was the easiest way). Sprinkle a handful of blueberries over each cake and bake for 15-20 minutes (mine took 20 minutes) until just firm to the touch and golden brown.
Cool in the tins for 5 minutes, then turn out and cool on a wire rack. To serve, dust lightly with icing sugar.

Grow your own Basil 2010

2010-05-01T13:46:00.000+01:00

PLANT: ‘Genovese’ Basil

Basil Genovese is the most commonly grown variety. Taller with larger leaves. Ideal to use in salads especially with tomatoes, pasta sauces and combines well with garlic.

I had some success growing basil last year, but it did much better grown indoors as something kept eating what I’d left outdoors planted next to my tomatoes.

Sow under cover:	January - December	26th Feb
Sow direct:	May - June
Germination time:	7-21 days	7th Mar
Plant out:	4 weeks after germination
Time from seed to plate:	60 days

SOW:

Sow seed thinly, 6mm deep.
When seedlings are large enough to handle, prick out into trays of compost at 5cm apart.

GROW:

After 4 weeks plant one plant per 15cm pot and place under protection or in sunny sheltered position outside. Alternatively, transplant into the open ground 25cm apart in a sunny, sheltered position.

CARE:

15 days after transplanting pinch out growing points of the plants to produce bushy plants. Remove flowering shoots to increase the harvest of leaves.

HARVEST:

March 7th:

The basil have started to germinate as I turned up the heating, as like tomatoes they need quite a high temperature (between 15-20°C) to sprout.

March 13th:

The basil has made some progress in the past week, with 6 out of 7 seeds sprouting and having formed their first two true leaves.

APRIL 6TH:

My basil seedlings are about 4cm tall, so today I transplanted them into 7.5cm pots as they’ve developed a second set of leaves now. They looked a bit droopy after transplanting, but after a bit of water they seemed to improve their posture.

Unfortunately I had to do my re-potting outside and it was a windy day, so some of the delicate basil leaves suffered from windburn. I’m sure they’ll bounce back as I’m keeping all my basil plants indoors.

APRIL 15TH:

The basil seedlings seem to have recovered from the transplant and are making slow and steady progress. They’re all roughly 3cm tall now and the set of true leaves are starting to look more like mature basil leaves in their shape with the wrinkle down the centre.

MAY 1ST:

The basil are doing OK although I might have overwatered them as some of the leaves are looking a bit off colour around the edges. The leaves are getting much bigger now and are starting to become more crinkled. New leaves are developing from the centre.

I should really be putting them in larger pots now but I’ve been too busy playing with the new dogs!

I must also remember to pinch out the growing points of the plants to produce bushy plants, as I forgot to do it last year and the plants became tall and spindly.

Our new dogs Sam and Alfie!

2010-04-30T15:16:00.000+01:00

This is our new dog Sam that we got on Saturday. He’s a rescue dog and he’s 2 years old. Apparently he’s a pure Lhasa Apso like our last dog Fizz, but he has a completely different temperament and Steve’s Mum keeps saying he’s not a true Lhasa from the way he looks. After some research online we think he’s a Tibetan Terrier. But we don’t care what he is as he’s a brilliant dog. He loves to play, be stroked and fussed over. He’s extremely energetic and will chase balls, toys and sticks and as you can see from the photo he also likes slippers!

When we first met Sam we were all a bit shell-shocked that he let us touch him and play with him, because Fizz never let us do anything with her. So we were all very tentative and a bit scared to be honest! But we’ve quickly adapted to having him and he’s making sure we’re all getting fit by playing with him so much. But he also likes to chill out by jumping on the sofa and taking a snooze on our laps – aaaah!

We’ve given him a bath (another thing we couldn’t do to Fizz!) as he likes water and he jumped in the river before he came to us! But we’re going to get him properly washed and groomed soon, then he’ll look even better. But I think he’s perfectly cute just the way he is.

On Tuesday when Steve’s Mum went to pay the rescue woman some money for keeping Sam, she brought home another dog! He’s called Alfie and he’s the spitting image of Fizz. So even though we were shocked she wanted 2 dogs, we could see why she couldn’t resist. His tongue is incredibly long and is always sticking out. Although Alfie looks just like Fizz, his temperament is also the complete opposite as he’s so affectionate and always wants cuddles.

If I look tired in this photo then it’s because I am! The 2 dogs have been getting on OK (apart from some jealousy and fights over food), but Sam is so much bigger than Alfie and when they play-fight Sam is a bit too boisterous and so we have to keep an eye on them. So for the past 2 nights Steve has been sleeping downstairs with the dogs until 5am and then I get up and we swap guard duty. But we’ve been told this isn’t the right thing to do as they need to sort out their dominance problem between themselves, so tonight they’re sleeping on their own.

So blogging has taken a bit of a back-seat for a while as I’m just too tired to do much cooking or blogging about my plants. Next week I’m doing a couple of days work on the Tesco website and the week after I start a new job for 3 months! So hopefully I’ll have had a good night’s sleep before then!

Panko Fish with Katsu Curry Sauce

2010-04-29T13:53:00.000+01:00

MUNCH RATING: 4/5

When I was in the Chinese supermarket with my brother and we walked past the Panko breadcrumbs I told him that’s what is used to make Chicken Katsu Curry like in Wagamamas. So he asked how do I make the curry sauce and I told him I use the Golden Curry sauce mix (Medium Hot). So he bought some, but I’m not sure if he’s used it yet. So this recipe is for you Greg!

In the packet there are 2 foil-sealed blocks of the sauce mix and each block has 4 squares. The instructions say a whole packet will make enough sauce to serve 5, but I use just 1 square to make enough sauce for myself and Steve. I calculated the amount of water is 175ml to create a nice thick sauce.

Chicken Katsu is traditionally deep fried, but I don’t really like deep frying so I always shallow fry for about 5-10 minutes until crispy and golden brown and cooked through. Fish cooks a lot quicker and only needs a few minutes each side. After I learned my new trick to breadcrumb chicken using only oil (instead of using flour and egg first - see Creamy Chicken Kiev) I used the same method for the fish and it worked really well.

Steve likes his curry with brown rice, but I decided to have some roasted squash and sweet potatoes with mine.

Serves: 2

Ingredients:

2 fillets of white fish (I used tilapia), cut into smaller pieces if very large
Olive oil
2 handfuls of Panko breadcrumbs
Vegetable oil
1 square of Golden Curry sauce
175ml hot water

Directions:

Coat the fish (or chicken) with the olive oil, then coat well with the breadcrumbs.
Heat a few Tablespoons of vegetable oil in a large frying pan and then add the fish when the oil is hot (test the temperature by dropping a few breadcrumbs in and if they sizzle then it’s ready). Fry the fish for 4-5 minutes on each side until golden brown and crispy.
Meanwhile, make the curry sauce by putting the hot water in a small saucepan, then add the square of curry sauce and whisk constantly over a medium heat until the square has dissolved and you have a nice thick sauce.

Michelin Star Cookery Experience

2010-04-24T11:03:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I attended the Michelin Star Cookery Experience at The Kitchen in Parsons Green.

My review for the Delicious. Magazine website has now been published!

We were given the option to bring the food we’d prepared home and I thought Steve would like to try the Stuffed Sea Bass and Tarte Tatin that I’d made. So when I got home I just popped the fish straight in the oven, as it was packaged in an ovenproof container.

The fish was stuffed with red onion, tomato and herbs, then topped with slices of lemon. After 20 minutes in the oven it was perfectly cooked. They suggested serving the fish with brown rice and luckily I had some leftover in the fridge so I cooked it with some mushrooms, peppers, peas and home-grown chives.

The sun was still out, so we ate our dinner in the breeze house. The fish was delicious and a perfect Summer dish. I told Steve it should be completely bone free as we had to remove the backbone, but there were still a few stray bones! He was still impressed though and declared he now liked sea bass.

We’d also put our Tarte Tatins in an ovenproof container. I popped this in the oven as soon as the fish came out and reduced the temperature. It took a bit longer than the time suggested for the pastry to become golden brown. I think the temperature gauge on our gas oven lies.

But when it eventually was ready, it looked delicious. We had to leave it to rest for about 5 minutes, to allow the apples to absorb the caramel. When I did turn it out onto a plate, a lot of the caramel was still stuck in the cooking container and had set. So Steve popped it in the microwave to melt and then drizzled it over the apples.

We ate it with vanilla ice cream and it was very nice, except Steve thought the caramel tasted a little bitter (I thought it was perfect) and we both thought the apples were a bit tart (they were Granny Smiths). The pastry was perfectly cooked though.

Overall, it was a lovely meal and I learned a lot in the cookery class.

Lamb and Lentil Curry

2010-04-22T11:45:00.000+01:00

MUNCH RATING: 4/5

When I was in Sainsburys looking for some stewing lamb I found a boneless lamb shoulder, which worked out cheaper than those packets of diced lamb. As it was boneless it was easy to cut up into pieces and I managed to make 2 meals from the joint. One was a Thai Massaman Curry and the other was this curry.

I adapted a recipe from an old Fresh magazine and I cooked it in my Tefal 4-in-1. The meat was meltingly tender and had incredible flavour as the lamb shoulder had a good bit of fat on it.

I served it with brown rice and home-made naan bread.

Serves: 2 (the amount of sauce could serve 4 people if you double the meat)

Ingredients:

2 Tablespoons oil
500g lamb shoulder (or leg) cut into 4cm chunks
1 large onion, sliced
1 green pepper, cut into chunks
2 Tablespoons of Rogan Josh Curry Paste (I used Pataks)
1 (400g) tin of chopped tomatoes
1 tin of water
1 Tablespoon of concentrated liquid stock (I used Knorr Touch of Taste Beef)
2 handfuls of split red lentils, rinsed and drained
1 whole green chilli, poked a few times with a knife

Directions:

Heat the oil in a large pan and fry the lamb in batches until lightly browned all over. Remove the lamb from the pan (set aside in the Tefal cooking bowl) leaving the oil in the pan.
Add the onions and pepper to the pan and cook over a medium heat for about 10 minutes until soft and golden.
Return the lamb to the pan, stir in the curry paste and fry for a couple of minutes to release the spices.
Add the tomatoes, tin of water, the Tablespoon of concentrated liquid stock, the red lentils and the green chilli.
Bring to the boil, then transfer to the Tefal cooking bowl. Cook for 4-5 hours. You can transfer the curry back into the pan and simmer uncovered to thicken the sauce whilst you cook the rice in the Tefal.

COOK’S NOTES:

You can cook this on the hob by covering the pan and simmering gently for 1 hour 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Or you can cook it in the oven at Gas mark 4/350°F/180°C for 2-2½ hours.

Grilled Mackerel with couscous salad

2010-04-17T17:36:00.000+01:00

MUNCH RATING: 5/5

After making the Devilled Mackerel recipe and finding out Steve really didn’t like the bones, I decided to try filleting the whole fish myself and simply grill them. I watched a How To Fillet Mackerel video on the uktv.co.uk site by James Martin, but I found it easier to start at the tail end (instead of the head end) and cut along the backbone and against the spine, all the way down towards the head. Filleting the fish was easy, it was just pulling out all the bones that was time consuming!

Mackerel is so cheap - two whole fish cost just £1.67 from Tesco and this was the reduced price! We’re trying to eat more of it because it’s good for you and we need to eat more oily fish. I have developed eczema as I’ve grown older and I take Omega 3 fish oil supplements (when I remember!) to help my skin, but I prefer to get the nutrients from my food.

Luckily I’d kept an article from my Delicious magazine about how to cook fish and it said grilling was the best method for fish like mackerel and sardines. I just slashed the skin to stop the fillets from curling up, drizzled both sides with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. I loved the simplicity as it allowed the flavour of the fish to shine.

The couscous salad is something that Steve and I make quite a lot in the Summer. It’s just plain couscous with chopped up bits of whatever veg we can lay our hands on (like carrot, cucumber, tomato, sweetcorn) and then we mix in a dollop of Salad Cream and chilli ketchup. I’d never thought of adding Salad Cream to couscous, but Steve puts it on everything and it really works with the couscous by giving it a nice zing!

During my cooking course at Tante Marie I learned a new way to prepare couscous from one of the teachers called John. He said to add the olive oil to the dry couscous, then to add the hot water. The oil coats the grains so they become more fluffy and separated. Today I saw a chef on Saturday Kitchen toast the couscous first in a pan with oil and butter to give it a nutty flavour, so I might try that next time.

TASTE TEST:

I was worried Steve wouldn’t like this meal as I thought he wouldn’t like the amount of olive oil I’d used in the couscous and on the fish. But he loved it! He said it was absolutely perfect and it made him feel like he was eating dinner on holiday in a sunny country like Greece. So I was really pleased and it made all the effort of removing the bones worth it!

Serves: 2

Ingredients:

2 whole mackerel, filleted or 4 mackerel fillets
olive oil
90g couscous
hot water
½ spring onion, finely sliced
½ carrot, diced
4 cherry tomatoes, diced
some cucumber, diced
Tablespoon Salad Cream
teaspoon Chilli Ketchup (we like the Heinz fiery hot one, but the mild one is good too)
salt and pepper

Directions:

Slash the skin on the mackerel 4-5 times to stop it from curling. Drizzle with olive oil on both sides, then season with salt and pepper. Place under a hot grill for 5 minutes with the skin side up. Turn off the grill and leave the fish under the grill to rest for 2 minutes.
Meanwhile make the couscous: place the dry couscous in a large bowl and drizzle with about a Tablespoon of olive oil to coat all the grains, mixing well. Add just enough hot water to cover all the grains, then add the spring onions and quickly cover the bowl (with a large plate is fine). Leave the couscous to absorb the water and soften for about 5 minutes.
When the couscous is soft, fluff up the grains with a spoon and then mix in the chopped vegetables, the Salad Cream and the chilli ketchup (don’t add too much of the sauces otherwise the couscous will be soggy, add just enough for flavour). Season with salt and pepper then serve immediately with the fish.

Triple Chocolate Cookies made healthier!

2010-04-16T18:27:00.000+01:00

MUNCH RATING: 3/5

I saw this recipe in the April issue of BBC Good Food magazine and they looked really good. But Steve and I are still on a sort of health kick, so I decided to tweak the recipe and make it a bit healthier.

CHANGES TO THE RECIPE:

First of all I reduced the amount of caster sugar (the original calls for golden but I only had normal) and I only used the milk chocolate instead of adding dark and white chocolate chips/chunks. I also only used 100g of milk chocolate instead of 140g as I only had one 100g bar!

I didn’t use an ice cream scoop or measuring spoon to form balls of the dough, I just used my hands. For the first batch I made the balls about the size of a walnut and they were quite large. The recipe didn’t state to flatten the cookies, so even after they were baked they were really thick and still quite ball shaped. So I had to flatten them whilst they were still soft and bake them for a bit longer, about 15 minutes in total.

For the second batch I made the balls a bit smaller, about the size of a cherry tomato, and I flattened them so they were about 1cm thick. I baked these for 9 minutes and they were much better.

TASTE TEST:

I didn’t really like the taste of these cookies, but Steve and his Mum thought they were very nice. The texture was quite good, slightly crispy/crunchy on the outside but soft and chewy on the inside.

The recipe below is how I made the cookies. You can find the original here.

Makes: 24
Oven temperature: Gas mark 6/400°F/200°C
You will need: baking sheets lined with Magic liner or non-stick baking paper

Ingredients:

100g soft brown sugar
50g caster sugar
100g butter, softened
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
225g plain flour
100g milk chocolate, melted

Directions:

Heat oven to Gas mark 6/400°F/200°C. Line 1-2 baking sheets with baking parchment.
Mix the sugars and butter together with a wooden spoon, then add the egg, vanilla, flour and half the melted milk chocolate and mix together.
Using your hands, form balls of cookie dough about the size of a cherry tomato and place them onto the baking trays (they don’t spread much, so you can place them quite close together). Flatten the balls with your hands so they’re about 1cm thick.
Bake in batches for 8-9 minutes until pale golden and still soft to touch - they will firm up as they cool. Carefully transfer to a wire rack as soon as they can be lifted up, then drizzle with the remaining melted chocolate.

Creamy Chicken Kiev

2010-04-16T17:59:00.000+01:00

MUNCH RATING: 3/5

I was inspired by the Cheat’s Chicken Kiev recipe in the May issue of BBC Good Food magazine to make something similar. We hardly ever eat chicken breast as we normally find it too dry and bland compared to the dark meat (thighs and legs). But I had some soft cheese in the fridge and I thought it would keep the chicken nice and moist, especially when coated in breadcrumbs.

CHANGES TO THE RECIPE:

I used Panko breadcrumbs as I always have them in the cupboard for when I make Chicken Katsu Curry. Normally I would pane the chicken by dusting in flour, then coating in beaten egg and then coating with breadcrumbs. But the Good Food recipe said to coat the chicken in olive oil and then coat in breadcrumbs. This method worked just as well as the pane technique and it’s a lot less faffing around! I didn’t flavour the breadcrumbs with parsley or garlic as I flavoured the soft cheese instead.

I flavoured the soft cheese with garlic and fresh chives (from my herb pot!) instead of using a shop-bought garlic and herb soft cheese.

TASTE TEST:

I thought the chicken was really moist and tender and I liked the crunch of the breadcrumbs. Steve said he wasn’t too keen on the soft cheese as he thought it had a strange taste, but he’s not a huge fan of it anyway. I think that maybe it was the garlic that tasted strange, as it had a bit of a raw taste to it. So maybe it is better to use a shop-bought garlic and herb soft cheese so that it would have a milder flavour? I would use this method of cooking chicken breast again as the meat was lovely and tender, but I would experiment with the filling. I loved the new technique of coating with the breadcrumbs, so I’ve learnt a new trick!

Serves: 2
Oven temperature: Gas mark 6/400°F/200°C

Ingredients:

2 garlic cloves, crushed or grated
2 Tablespoons soft cheese (I used Sainsburys Light Soft Cheese)
2 Tablespoons chives, finely chopped
2 large skinless, boneless chicken breasts
4 Tablespoons Panko breadcrumbs (or use fresh breadcrumbs)
Olive oil

Directions:

Preheat the oven to Gas mark 6/400°F/200°C.
Mix together the garlic, soft cheese and chives. Season with salt and pepper.
Cut a slit in the side of each chicken breast to make a small pocket. Spoon half the soft cheese mixture into the hole of each chicken breast and press together to seal. (I prepared the chicken up to this stage and then left them in the fridge).
Coat the chicken breasts in the olive oil, then coat both sides with the breadcrumbs and drizzle with more oil (optional, I didn’t do this).
Place the coated chicken on a baking tray and bake for 20-25 minutes until the chicken is cooked and the breadcrumbs are golden brown.