Summer meal from the garden

Having wandered down to the veg patch to do some much needed weeding and watering, I actually ended up picking things for my tea - I couldn't resist the rumbling tummy any further. (I did a little bit of half-hearted weeding, the rest will have to wait until tomorrow now)

There were a range of things ready for the picking - purple podded peas, french beans ( cosse violeto, north eastern and norwegian dry varieties), tomatoes (small cherry varieties inc sungold), baby courgettes ( yellow zucchini and patty pan) various leaves (wild carrot, lambs lettuce, purple and green orache, baby chard, mixed lettuce, nasturtium leaves, comfrey), a small whole garlic bulb and a lemon balm plant - pulled up by accident with poor weeding technique.

From left to right: fresh garlic, nasturtium flower, cherry tomatoes, purple podded peas, baby courgettes, wild carrot leaf,  cosse violetto beans, lambs lettuce,  nasturtium leaves, norwegian dry beans, mixed lettuce, purple and green orache, northeastern beans, lemon balm

As the hens have been laying well recently, and one of my favourite ways to use our eggs is home-made pasta, I decided to make some goats cheese tortellini and have them with the veg.

From LHS: tomatoes, baby courgettes and peas, mixed salad, goat cheese and lemon balm tortellini and frazzled garlicky beans

Goats cheese and lemon balm tortellini
This was just a standard pasta mix which I stuffed with a mix of goats cheese and chopped comfrey - but I laid a lemon balm leaf onto each piece of pasta before I put the cheese stuffing in. The lemon balm was stronger in flavour than I expected, but to get a really strong lemony -goat cheese filling  I'd put an extra leaf in each tortellini. I tossed the coooked tortellini in butter, pepper and some torn tarragon leaves before serving.

Frazzled garlicky beans
Having sliced the beans diagonally into bite-sized pieces, I quickly boiled them then tossed them into melted butter with some of the fresh garlic and freshly ground black pepper and 'frazzled' them a bit.

Baby courgettes, tomatoes and peas
The courgettes and tomatoes were sliced in half and lightly cooked in olive oil for a few minutes. Towards the end of the cooking time as the tomatoes were softening slightly, I threw in the peas that had been boiled for about a minute, and some of the chopped fresh garlic.

Salad
I used the various salad leaves (not the comfrey which was used in the goat cheese and lemon balm tortellini) and added some olive oil and balsamic vinegar and mixed together to make a vinaigrette

Enjoy!

Tapas-style tea

Chilli spiced potatoes

Scrub the skins of some baby new potatoes and cut into pieces a bit bigger than an inch. Heat some olive oil, chilli oil and paprika in a frying pan then toss the potatoes in and coat the potatoes thoroughly. Turn the heat down low and cook for 15 - 20 minutes until golden browned and softened.

Artichoke and asparagus salad

Snap and discard the woody ends from some asparagus spears. Boil the asparagus spears in salted water for about 3 minutes, drain and set aside. Quarter some globe artichoke hearts and mix with the asparagus spears,  Add some lemon zest, lemon juice and sesame oil into the artichoke and asparagus and season with pepper.

Comfrey, hop, courgette and chipotle tortilla

Slice up some baby courgettes and gently fry in a frying pan with olive oil and some chopped spring onions.  Chop up a chipotle chilli (a smoked halapeno chilli pepper) and add to the courgettes and spring onions. Add some chopped comprey leaves to salted boiling water and simmer for 2 minutes, throw in some hope shoots, simmer for a further 30 seconds then drain and add to the courgette mix.  Mix about 4 eggs with some cottage cheese and pour over the vegetable mix in the frying pan. If you like it, chop up some goats cheese and sprinkle that over the top with some mozzarella. Continue to warm over a low heat until most of the egg mixture has set, then put under a hot grill to finish off the top and brown the cheese.

Plate the asparagus and artichoke hearts onto a bed of mixed leaves and nasturtium flowers.  Make a mint and cucumber raita to take off the heat from the chilli potatoes, and serve with big wedges of tortilla and salad.

Comfrey and Fat Hen Pie

The smell of comfrey tea, a fantastic homemade fertiliser of plants, stewing in the water butt has always put me off eating comfrey myself. Until now.

The comfrey in the garden has grown ridiculously fast, and with the high winds this week, much has blown over forcing me to cut the first lot to make comfrey tea. So I took the opportunity to pick some of the best leaves for myself - with trepidation.

I started by blind baking a pie case that would end up a bit crunchy on the outside (I preferred it to a a very short pastry crust). The comfrey and fat hen were boiled for about 3 minutes - and actually smelled fantastic which I was not expecting! I then chopped them up and added them to a bechamel sauce to which I had added two egg yolks and some cottage cheese. This was all mixed up and put into the pastry crust, topped with some panko breadcrumbs and baked for 20-30 minutes.

I did not expect this to taste as good as it did, but I'm delighted to have found another leaf in the garden that can be used in place of spinach. Comfrey puts down incredibly long roots and is able to bring a lot of nutrients back to the surface - why its used to make liquid fertiliser for plants.  Fat Hen was traditionally used in cooking until mass-produced spinach replaced it. Hens also love it hence the name (and its effect on them apparently).

Recipe inspired by Rosamund Richardson's recipes for Fat Hen and Comfrey.