The Garden and recipes

Welcome to my new page for those wanting to turn food from the garden into food for your family.

October, is a month of clearing away old debis, dead plants, getting your stores of food full for winter, harvesting nuts soon.
Already my son has brought home sacks of chestnuts from his morning goats walks, and they went straight onto the burner to cook, making sure, of course, you prick them before they cook, or they might explode all over your kitchen, so we found out.

As the weather gets cooler in the evenings now, and potential light rain over night, and the mist in the morning, we get the nice arrival of parasol mushrooms here, hiding in the grass.



Simple Nettle Soup

Ingredients

Nettles from the garden as much as you want, the more you have the stronger the flavour

Potato and any other roots or veg you have in the fridge

1 Onion

4 Cloves of Garlic

Salt and pepper to taste


 Crusty bread to serve


Directions

In a little oil, in your soup pot, add the onions, cubed potato and any other veg you have, fry with a little salt. Add the garlic, fry for additional 3 minutes then add water to fill pot.

When the veg and roots are cooked, add the nettles cook for 3 minutes more.
Blitz the soup with potato smasher, or electric blender, add more salt if needed to taste, serve with crusty bread.

Enjoy





Coffee Grounds Biscotti's

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup used coffee grounds
• 2 teaspoons cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 2 eggs plus 1 egg yolk
• 1 1/4 cups chopped toasted hazelnuts

Directions

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl, mix the flour, sugar, coffee grounds, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt together. Stir in the eggs and yolk until just incorporated. Fold in the hazelnuts and knead for about 2 minutes, until well incorporated.

Form the dough into 4 logs about 6 inches long and 1 1/2 inches wide. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes, until lightly browned.

Let the logs cool. Reduce the oven temperature to 200 F. Cut each log into about 5 to 6 slices, each 6 inches long by1/4 -inch-wide. Spread them flat on two baking sheets and bake for an additional 35 to 45 minutes, until hard.

Remove from the oven and cool. Store in an airtight container away from light for up to 15 days.

Polenta goat cheese,  caramalized cherry tomatoes, Bake in the oven.

I gathered the Polenta together and cooked it until soft. Now it is ready to put into a greaselined tin, squished down tight.
On top i layered sliced green pepper and cherry tomatoes, added a knob of butter on top.
Seasoned with salt and pepper and then grated cheese to finish, the put into the hot oven.

Alongside my bake, i roasted some potatoes with a sprig of rosemary.

I baked for about 40 mins, checking regularly until browned.

Bom Apetite.!!!





Parasol mushroom fritters   


  With the hats of the parasol mushrooms i gently pull apart till i have one hat in quarters. I make up a simple batter with flour and water and a dash of salt.

  In a frying pan or in a hot oven, i lay they battered mushrooms quarters out to cook and brown.

Now you can add whatever you like to your batter to give it a bit more excitement. Garlic, herbs, egg, can be added for flavour.
To be honest, the mushroom has such a lovely flavour that i hardly like to put too much in, the batter around the mushroom helps to retain the full mushrooms true flavour, can accompany with beans, potatoes, side salad of wild leaves and herbs, a section i will get to in another post.

Make sure you learn and research the right mushrooms properly, so many bad accidents happen to people who don't take proper care of learning about mushrooms and the dangers.

The month is September, the date Fri 13th.

For some a bad and unlucky day, i was born on a fri13th, and i have had nothing but good luck my whole life.

The Celtics believed that Fri 13th was the birthday of Freya the goddess of love and beauty, and that all should celebrate this day.

What to do with a lot of tomatoes?

      1.   For the season of September here in the mediterranean climate up in the mountains, our tomatoes are reddening and ripening quicker than you can shake a stick at. I had the fire oven on all day yesterday so that i could cook and bottle up all the tomato recipes known to man.

I canned a few jars of tomatoes, with salt sugar and lemon juice, to use a base for spaghetti Bolognaise, for lasagne, for pasta and sauce, from there i can mix with any other vegetable.

For now i have a pantry full of tomatoes in jars for winter.

2. Slice the tomatoes in half lengthways, skin downside, place on a baking tray lightly salt and leave them in the car front window with all windows closed, should stay bug free and quicken the time for drying out. By the second day you should have sun dried tomatoes.

 From here you can either keep them in an airtight jar, or fill the jar with olive oil, and leave in a sunny window for a day, the oil should gain a lovely dried tomato flavour for salads or sauces.

3.  Mamma's special tomato sauce.. Fill a pot with as many tomatoes as you can, boil it right down, stirring occasionally, as to not burn the base of the pot. Once boiled to a third of what you started with, strain the seeds, and skin through a sieve.

 Keep cooking until you have a lovely thick tomato sauce consistency, add salt and sugar to taste. I put a little homemade cider vinegar in to give it zing, again, i don't follow a recipe as such, i go by taste and feedback from the family. You can add any flavours you like, garlic onion is a good one, herbs, the choice is yours.

Homemade cider vinegar 

As the fruit begins to fall this autumn, there will be much that seems wasted. Fear not, the bruised and ugly looking apples can transform into a healthy, medicine and flavouring of food.

Collect apples, wash, cut off the bruises or bug holes and any infestations, seeds and all, cut roughly and put into a large glass jar. once packed all the apples in, add the sugar over the apples until almost full. Then add the same amount in water. Leave the lid lightly on so no bugs get in, and air bubbles can get out, avoiding minor explosions.

Leave for 2 weeks, then decanter the apples into the compost, leaving only the vinegar.

It won't taste much like vinegar yet, although you need to let the vinegar sit with lid tightly on for further 2-3-4weeks, keep tasting to find the required flavour.

Polenta


Our harvest this year of corn was a lot, grateful we are to have such riches, although instead of chicken food and fresh corn on the cob, we struggled with what else we could make.

I dug out my electric blender, and thought i'd try a little experiment. In went the dried corn kernels, and a few loud blending moments later, we were left with coarsely ground corn.



300g of dried corn kernels added to boiling water, stirring continuously for the first 5 mins, then stirring every 10mins, for a total of 40mins, i tasted the grittiness, and it was ready to serve.
 I added salt and pepper, and finely ground parmesan cheese, and it was a big hit with the family. The big boys loved it and agreed it was more filling than bread.



 The next day with left-overs i made little patties up and fried it in some oil, the frying gave it a lovely corn fritter taste, i served with some tomato and basil salad and it was a lovely light lunch.

Upside Down Apple cake


Slice apples, cook in a pot of butter, sugar and cinnamon.
In a round cake tin, grease with butter sprinkle sugar over the butter, then pick out and place the apple slices and arrange them in the tin.

FOR THE BATTER

To make a simple cake mix, melt butter and sugar in a separate pot, cool then add to a bowl of all purpose flour, add baking powder, a tsp for every 100g of flour. To the flour and butter sugar mix, add a pinch of salt, 2eggs. Whip it all up so to create air inside the mixed batter, pour the batter mix over the arranged apple slices in the tin, place into a hot oven until browned on top, leave to cool before flipping it over, pul off the tin and enjoy.








The Garden

I live up in the mountains of South West Europe, just within the mediterranean belt of the sea, but with strong sea winds we get all sorts of a manner of things blow in.

Since growing my garden i haven not been able to find much help with these kinds of conditions, most planting advice i found is from America, and i feel is is very different. As the years have passed i have learn to write things down, take samples, tests, experiments, we have thrown a lot of hard work into the garden, and added a lot of goat manure, each Autumn time. I now know what grows well in my garden.

A lot of the advice i can give is that you need to learn your own plot of land, what your soil likes and what it doesn't, try new things, try well know plants that can survive in any condition and watch how it develops, another, choose a plant that is sensitive to acid soils and plants that are sensitive to alkaline soils, and again see the difference. Take into consideration, one side of your garden might be acidic more than the other, it is a never ending project, one job after another and it never stops, that's the beauty of it. You can alternatively buy from the shops a pH test kit, and can pick them up for near next to nothing. Try at your local garden centre.

Just when you thing you have everything under control, the weather decides to pour it down more this year, than last, then thats your tomatoes and potatoes under risk, the sun is particularly strong, or the frost decides to hang about longer than it usually does. Prevention rather than cure, means more hard work, but it is a labour of love to some of us.

Oct  10th Thurs 2019:-    Parasol mushrooms have popped up in the garden, right in the corners where not much goes on, each morning when the dew settles ill be gently sifting through the grass.   

     
Check out my recipe for parasol mushroom.




Oct 9th Wed 2019:-  Planted a row of ground cabbage on ready mulched and fertilised bed.
                                  Cut back comfrey bush lay leaves on or below plants to give them strength, they will rot down in to mulch and be very beneficial for the earth.

                                   Keep clearing away old dead plants, to avoid mould spread, keep the grass down to keep away mice and rodents, they encourage snakes into your garden and potentially your house.

Oct 1st Tues 2019:-  Clearing away old plants, laying down the beans, picking the last of them, to dry.

                                  Re-mulching ground for next season with goat manure.

                                  Planting from seed turnips, half of the bed now, the other half in 3 weeks, successional growing...


                                   still picking tomatoes, lay the plants down take out the sticks,

                                    Courgettes and pumpkins will be getting mould about now, most fruiting plants will be detesting the cold.

                                       Pull up herbs for potting indoors, for over winter.






Sept 10th Tues 2019:- All the potatoes are harvested.  Plant mustard seed in the potato patch to
                                      inhibit eelworm increasing.

                                     All onions harvested.

                                      Mulch the beds that have become vacant now, unless planting more, cover            
                                       over with hay, or compost, garden debris.
                                 
                                      deadhead flower heads, collect seeds.








   What plants, vegetables to grow in your garden, where, how and when to harvest them?

  I have started this page at the end of the planting season, i don't know why, but i suppose in this annual cycle of produce you have to start somewhere, and most of the garden work is done up till now, until the next wave. In my world right now, most of the hard work has been completed and i am reaping in my treasures from what i have sown.

The month is August, the date..the 23rd, year 2019....


WINTER
(The garden has been growing over nicely in winter this year, let the weeds grow to cover the ground from leaching nutrients, and by doing this you'll create some lovely fresh green leaves for wild foraging from your garden, a post i'll write sure to come of what grows in my garden over winter.)






 We have constant water flowing from the mountains through my garden, and i am lucky enough to have the possibility of introducing a pipe to my running water stream, and it keeps some dry parts of my garden with trickling water.

  So, we have harvested most of our potatoes, half more to go. Currently sorting the good ones from the bad in time for storing them in our dark cellar for winter use.

 Flat green beans and french beans are at their most abundant now and require daily picking, usually 3 kilos we get a day. Those i blanch in boiling water for a few minutes, then pop them, once cooled, into the freezer for storage.

  The fresh corn is picked and blanched and in the freezer, now only the dried corn remains, getting nice and dry in the sun, and ready to either gift to the chickens or store for making corn flour to bake with.

Tomatoes too are huge and red, growing extra limbs, peppers are still a slow start, but they usually are here.

Courgettes are few but constant, the kuru pumpkins and butternut squash are coming daily.
 Onions are about ready to harvest too.

Currently cleaning the old beds, preparing them for more to go in before the season is through, I'm sure i can get more things in before the cold hits. Thats is at about December when the evenings are cooler, established plants should survive, of course not plants like tomatoes.

  August....Seeds to sow....Carrots

                                               Onions

                                    Radish

Clear up dead plants, leaves.

Keep up the watering to ensure a big dose of goodness to expand your harvest.

As always keep weeding...

WINTER
(The garden has been growing over nicely in winter this year, you should let the weeds grow to cover the ground from leaching nutrients, and by doing this you'll create some lovely fresh green leaves for wild foraging from your garden, a post i'll write sure to come of what grows in my garden over winter.)

Its 3rd of April and the weather is warm. It was warm back at the beginning of March also, then we had a cold spell from then to now, only a bit of frost in the morning, snow on the mountain above us 3 days ago.


APRIL Direct sowing... and... sowing in Pots

Direct sow
I have been germinating seeds. Back in beginning of March i germinated some lettuces in an old plastic container and left outside in the cold and rain, i know lettuce doesn't mind the cold so much. Since then i have planted them out into wet fertilised turned over ground. In the same patch i set some carrot seeds in a row as a test, and 10days from then ill plant some more rows.
In a nearby patch i put some Spinach seeds straight in the ground. Another vegetable that doesn't mind a cold spell to help it get along. With my broken garden hose will holes all in it i have used it to sprinkle water on the spinach seeds, a week later some are showing heads. I have also planted out some turnips, Garlic, sweetheart cabbage, and another cabbage which I'm not sure of, and some mustard seeds to inhibit the potato wireworm pest.

In Pots

In seed trays i have germinated a test run of tomatoes, which i keep covered overnight, peppers, patty pan courgettes, aubergines, chilis. Tomatoes are doing well, a late start with the others, but can see some changes.

The sun was hot today, so i took advantage of the heat and got all my seed trays out, they will come in at night.