Sweetcorn update!

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So I waged war on the ants and grabbed an out of date jar of cayenne pepper and generously sprinkled it all over the carrots - boy did those ants run!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

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

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.