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Welcome Back

Ele’s return to the garden after a stressful spring.

It has been a long time since you heard from me in sunny Norwich. Since concluding my third year of university things have been very much in flux and my future is slightly uncertain but somehow my plants, despite my general neglect, are mostly hanging in there.

My ever resilient herb pot still contains sage, oregano and some parsley which I am hoping to take seed from. If you only attempt growing one thing I would recommend a pot of mixed herbs. It is definitely the pot I have gotten most culinary use out of and in terms of value for money it has saved me a lot of money on fresh herbs which I love to cook with.

The new additions to my new patch have, however, been largely devoured by snails. “The little courgette plant that could” has somehow produced three (granted quite small) courgettes whilst possessing approximately five eighths of a leaf. How this has happened I don’t know but I am going to take them off and eat them soon, if only to give the poor thing chance to produce a few more leaves. My beans are also abundant despite intimate acquaintance with my slimy neighbours.  

I think I am having problems with my compost in some cases because the containers of onions and lettuces haven’t really done much. I think maybe fertiliser or something will fix it -something to bear in mind when I plant my next lot of plugs. The strawberry pot is also a little quiet on the progress front so maybe I won’t get anything from it this year. At least they can be kept over winter and, with feed, might do better next year.

The real success story is my tomato plant.  It seems to have thrived on my neglect and looks magnificent (if I do say so myself). It even has a few little green developing tomatoes on it. I am very excited to taste them. For reasons best known to themselves the snails have completely ignored it and I am thrilled. You will hear from me again soon. Happy gardening. Ele

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Meg’s Spiced Raspberry and Apple crumble

August 2013

This is a delicious recipe from one of my friends from university.  Crumbles are a great way to use up fruits that are a little too squishy or bruised to be eaten whole. Try experimenting with different fruit combinations but make sure you adjust the sugar content accordingly and beware an excess of juicy berries that will make your topping soggy.

Ingredients

For the fruit layer:

1kg apples, peeled, cored, and sliced into small chunks
175g raspberries
75g caster sugar

Half a teaspoon of nutmeg
Half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon

For the topping:

150g flour
75g caster
sugar 75g
butter
1 teaspoon of mixed spice

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius
  2. Layer the fruit in a well-greased ovenproof dish sprinkling a little of the sugar between each layer. When all the fruit is arranged, sprinkle over the spices.
  3. For the topping, sift the flour and sugar into a bowl, and rub in the butter until the mix looks like fine breadcrumbs. Add your spices and mix thoroughly.
  4. Spoon the topping evenly over the fruit, then bake for 40 minutes
  5. Serve with ice cream, cream or just by itself. 

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Homemade Lemonade

August 2013

Makes 1.5 litres (2 and a half pints)

Ingredients

6 lemons (try and get unwaxed or organic, trust me it’s worth it)

4ozs of granulated sugar

Method

  1. Zest the lemons with a grater into a large bowl, doing your best to avoid the white pith because that will make the finished product bitter. Zesting the lemons straight into the bowl you intend to make the lemonade in will make sure you don’t lose too many of the delicious natural oils in the lemons.
  2. Pour 1.5 litres (2 and a half pints) of boiling water over the lemon zest and add the sugar.
  3. After the zest mixture has cooled slightly, add the juice of all the lemons.
  4. Cover the mixture and leave to steep in the fridge overnight.
  5. Give it a taste and add more sugar if you deem it necessary. Strain and store in clean bottles. It will keep in the fridge for at least a week.
  6. This lemonade can either be served neat or diluted with still or sparkling water, have a taste and see what you prefer. I like mine in a 50:50 dilution with sparkling water with ice and a sprig of zingy lime basil. Lovely. 

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The Pudding Bar

The easiest way of catering pudding for a large group that brings out the creative side in everybody.

The secret to the success of the pudding bar is keeping in mind texture and the balance of sweetness in the potential desserts your guests could make. Below are some examples of what people came up with:

We all remember the unbridled joy of unlimited ice cream sundaes at chain restaurants: a tiny china bowl and your choice of sprinkles and sauces. Well, I thought, why not scale up the concept? Instead of the stress of cooking 3 or 4 different desserts (with guests’ dietary requirements and foibles in mind of course) why not just make the components? And thus the idea for the pudding bar was formed.

So I thought, what makes up my favourite puddings? In my opinion, the best puddings contain 3 elements: something sweet, something creamy and something fresh. For my sweet selection I made brownies, meringues and shortbread biscuits.  My creamy constituents included cream (pouring and whipped), yoghurt and ice cream (chocolate and vanilla). For freshness I provided summer berries from the garden, blackcurrant coulis with cassis, chopped nuts and a bitter chocolate sauce.

Me and my selection from the Pudding Bar :brownie, berries, vanilla ice cream and nuts in case you were interested. 

This was the easiest pudding-making for 18 people has ever been and I got some of the most glowing compliments I have ever received. So for your next party, why not get people to assemble their own favourite pudding and take some of the pressure off so you can enjoy yours more too?