Beginnings and Ends

Tiny Crop

My raspberries are starting to trickle slowly to a end. There are a couple of fruits left to ripen but no flowers are left. Nothing new is coming. So what to do with these small spurts? Just eating them is always an option. Or I could freeze them. Freezing is a good option if you are only getting small bursts of fruit and want to combine them together to make something like jam or pie.

the most important meal of the day

I decided to combine the last efforts of my Raspberries with the first efforts of the blackberries. I foraged for these on the way back from the allotment and cooked them into Whole Berry Sauce (from Vegan Brunch because I'm obsessed right now) and served on a mini stack of pancakes Stephen made for us.

Grow To Eat: Tomatoes and Rough and Ready Gardener's Tomato Sauce

Almost every beginner edible gardener is enchanted by the idea of growing their own tomatoes. And why not? They are fairly easy to grow, if a bit needy. They'll even do well on a windowsill. As every gardening magazine is equipped with a free packet of Gardener's Delight come spring you may as well grown them.

We've been growing tomatoes ever since we started growing food and here is our procedure.

Home Grown (just not that big)

Cold and Fried

So. It's ten days to the start of Vegan Mofo '11 and I don't have a working oven. It's like the end of the world. The heating element has gone to the big oven part factory in the sky and we're waiting until a new one can be sourced. In the mean time all my cravings involve things that are baked or roasted and I've been distracting myself with frozen and stove top wonders so I don't go crazy for lack of cookies.

Small portions: not usually my thing

I made ice cream yesterday, just in time for Brown Owl to come over and try some plan the next term of Brownies with me. There have been three bowls eaten but not one decorative photo taken so I scooped a single spoonful out of the freezer for this very important purpose. It's the recipe form Veganomicon which I first used last mofo only this time I went for the vanilla and made the mistake of only churning every hour which lead to bigger ice crystals. It tastes good though I might try it with a little less vanilla next time. The brand we buy tastes a bit alcoholic sometimes.

Springtime Spinach

I love spinach and have been growing it on the balcony since I started. I grow spinach beet. It's easier and more tolerant of our high temperatures. I like to think it's maritime ancestry makes it feel more at home. But this year I've diversified slightly. Along with a large patch of spinach beet underneath one of our passion flowers I've also put in some true spinach.

Gorgeous Greens

Hot and Spicy Days

The unseasonable warmth means that I have been drifting between naps on the couch and sitting reading on the balcony leaving me with no time too hot to cook. But I still have to eat and in this April heat that means one thing: spicy food. Hot and spicy food was made for hot and spicy days.

I've been playing with the Broiled Blackened Tofu from Appetite for Reduction. Cooking it until my smoke alarm sets off and eating it down as fast as I can. To temper the heat and add a little touch of freshness I picked a salad of baby leaves from the balcony (another thing helped along by the heat!) I also picked some mint and parsley for the dressing for these Moroccan carrots, a recipe that came in my Riverford box this week. The carrots, in their warm but not too spicy dressing bridged the gap between the hotter than hot tofu and the fresh greens.

Al Fresco

Last summer I was getting one big salad from the balcony a week. It was great and I loved it. I can't wait to get back into the habit this year as the weather warms up and the lettuce becomes an unstoppable force. But we aren't there yet. Fortunately a head of lettuce from Riverford is currently filling in the gap

Partly bought, partly home grown: a new season salad

I'm a believer in big salads. Salads have to fill you, they have to have lots of greens (my favourite part!) crispy veggies, herby stuff and tasty, tasty toppings. Bring me dressing. Croutons are optional. Grains are good. Cheese is decent. Falafel are better. So today's salad was lettuce, spinach falafel, balsamic vinaigrette and a few yums from the garden

Carrots of 2010

I had a problem with carrots last year. We always sow our carrots outside around mid March, taking advantage of the mild weather to get them started as soon as we can meaning we see our crop towards the end of summer. Only last year I decided that, because I get plenty of carrots in the veg box, I wanted to grow fancy carrots. So I went for a red variety, samurai, which bolted around June. Panic! Total panic! Arrrgh!  

Tomatoes, grown for soup.

With two weeks away and some rather violent winds has left one of my tomatoes looking like this. Giving shade to the ungrateful red onions who also aren't feeling very upright. But we're starting to get a crop and this years damage is due to wind and not blight (so far!) so I'm feeling optimistic.

At the moment we've got a window ledge full of the little things. Waiting and hoping for their turn at pasata with and occasional tomato being taken for dal or my Hot Summer Soup (recipe bellow) as they start to look a bit squashed. It's a happy time in the kitchen.

Two Peas and Fennel Rice

When I read about asparagus pea terms like 'prolific', 'easy to grow', 'doesn't actually taste like asparagus' so I bought some seeds from Wiggly Wigglers, sowed them and didn't do much else.

I've talked before about what an attractive and intriguing plant they make but now they are fully grown it's time for me to puzzle over how to eat them.

Of course you can use any pea in this recipe. The asparagus pea has a strong, defined taste so perhaps replacing it with edamame. Or use all of one kind. Frozen is always an option, one that's usually better if you can't get them from plant to kitchen as soon as. Even the humble bag of Birdseye gains ethical points for it's support of British farmers.

Two Peas and Fennel Rice

(serves one on the side)

1/4 cup of peas, I used an equal mix of fresh peas and asparagus peas

2 tsp chopped fennel leaf

1 spring onion, sliced diagonally

1 cup of cooked rice

1. Heat about a teaspoon of oil in a frying pan. When hot add the peas.
2. As the peas turn to a delicious bright green mix in the rice an fennel.
3. Cook until the rice is heated through, about 5 min, stiring occasionally to avoid sticking.
4. Mix in the spring onion and serve.

Strawberry Season

Our strawberries are slowly creeping towards ripeness. It's fantastic news but you do have to face certain facts about what this means as a balcony gardener. First, I'm never going to grow enough that I'll have enough to preserve. Even with Stephen being the type of person that likes strawberry jam but not the fruit. The second is that I'm probably not going to get enough ripe at the same time to eat a big bowl either.


But today I had a small handful, the balcony's way of proving that yield is nothing compared to a home grown strawberry. So I had a handful of strawberries and a desire to make them into something truly special. What to do? Well it was bullet biting time. I pulled Vegan Brunch off the shelf and finally, finally opened it to the crepe recipe.


And for all my foot dragging it was easy. Of course it was, I'm English, a life time of pancake days has prepared me. Vegan crepes? No problem. Delicious, fast and just a little bit decadent paired with home grown strawberries and chocolate sauce.

The Birthday Books

I love my Boyfriend. He bought me books. Well not just because he bought me books but we all know I'm rather obsessed with books so... No, really I do love him for many other reasons. Like how he manages to look prettiest first thing in the morning when I'm at my grumpiest and other things you will no doubt find nauseating. However this post is about the books he (lovingly) bought me for my Birthday and which I've spent all weekend practising with.

First up is the one that's actually about cooking. This was my surprise book. I mentioned that I'd like a bread making book that was a little more advanced, a little more artisan breads and a little less 'see how quick and easy it is to make your own bread at home'. Frankly I wanted beyond quick and easy. I wanted more kinds of bread. I wanted something that saw bread as serious.

I didn't quite want as much detail as there is in Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes at least I wouldn't have chosen it for myself (Stephens belief in my intelligence is reassuring, if misguided) but reading it (much in the same way as Joyce, ploughing through with the faith that I could go back on my confusion later, although with Joyce I never did, see the last lot of parenthesis) and working with it I've come too a truce with it's depth. Or perhaps it's more Stockholm syndrome; I love it for it.

Well not all of it. Granted it's a bit Western-centric - there is an Aloo Paratha as a nod to bread culture elsewhere - but then books like this generally will be. And as an American book all the home baking measurements are given in imperial. Which confuses me only in that they have points of ounces and we have fractions (and if you have point something why not have metric? Metric is nice, metric is easy. Honest!) and confuses Stephen because the scales are being left on imperial.

For my fist experiment I went for Baguettes with Poolish. They aren't anywhere near perfect. The scoring looks like the diagram of 'improper scoring techniques', the crust is cracked and the crumb is a bit too uniform. But I love them. Almost as much as Stephen.


On to the gardening books then! No surprises here, he bought me The Edible Garden. We kind of adore Alys Fowler. There is the red hair, the quirky dress sense, the enthusiasm and that is without coming to the bits where she is interested in skip diving, foraging and other things we find super exciting. In fact it's kind of a running joke in this flat that if Alys says so, we have to do it.

With The Edible Garden she is after our own hearts mixing attractive edibles and the purely decorative to get a productive garden that looks good. Also foraging, skip diving, preserving, baking and having a quirky dress sense and red hair. It adds up to a book that you can simultaneously open up and loose yourself in and get fantastic practical information from. No easy feat looking at the rest of my bookshelf.

As a nice bonus it has an (all too short!) recipe section. So I had Chard, Garlic and Hot Pepper with Instant Noodles with my own home grown chard for that extra smug taste. It was delicious.


Finally Grow Your Own Drugs: A Year With James Wong, also not terribly surprising. We love Grow Your Own Drugs, okay me quite a bit more than Stephen, for the sheer ingenuity and horticultural geekery. And how cool is it to have a book that discusses natural remedies and skin care stuff by bragging about the chemical contents in plants rather than knocking modern medicine and claiming to be chemical free. Very cool, that's how.

For a test drive I went for the Oats and Chamomile Bath Bag. Both precious emollients that hopefully would let me have a bath that benefits my eczema rather than irritating it (if you're wondering 'why have a bath at all then?' my eczema gets irritated then too. My skin is in a constant state of loose-loose.)

I suffer from eczema on my lower legs and occasionally -though rarely - higher up. It's manly a problem in summer (heat) and winter (dry) letting me be in spring and autumn. Although the prolonged winter weather gave me no respite this year. I manly let it be, treating with emollient cream and avoiding anything likely to cause agony, like scratching.

I only seek medical attention if it's particularly bad. Although a dose of topical steroids can clear it up rather quickly applying it is irritating and uncomfortable. I know. It sucks. So I only show my legs off to the doctor when they are over run or infected, and yes they are rather hairy. I'd rather be a laughing stock than in constant pain.

Anyway, that's my medical history. Back to the bath bag. It was luscious. It felt lovely in the bath and not only didn't it irritate my legs any further but it reduced the existing irritation, the itchiness and the pain. Cool.