Squash soup

The veg box and the veg plot have yielded us a few nice squashes recently, so I decided that  soup was in order. I'm rather suspicious of this soup as my impression of it is a bit watery and insipid; probably inspired by soup made with Halloween-type pumpkins. How wrong I have proved myself to be, and how glad I am I tried with a different variety.

I started with a Hubbard squash from the veg box - about 2lb in weight (but see note at end). I removed the top and scooped out all the seeds. (I wanted to serve the soup from the shell of the squash so didn't remove a lot of flesh, just scraped the inside a bit - leaving a shell about a centimetre and a half thick.)

Hollowed out Hubbard squash on the left, dwarfing the Honey Bear squash, left.

The flesh was added to a pan with some oil and a large diced onion, and the chopped flesh of a 'Honey Bear' squash, courtesy of the garden (about 8 oz).

The hollowed out pumpkin went into the oven and I periodically scraped more of the flesh out of it while I cooked it for the next 40 minutes or so, and added this to the mix cooking on the hob.

I added water, salt, about 10oz butter, a large handful of thyme to the soup and simmered for about half an hour until the  mix was thickening up and the squash was breaking down. I then added a can of tinned sweetcorn, heated the whole lot up and then blitzed with a blended to make it smooth.

Just before serving I added some small cubes of cheese and then poured it all into the hollowed out squash for serving

It was lovely served with a dollop of natural yogurt and some drops of chilli oil. The taste was so much richer, sweeter and better than I expected, and everyone (including the six year old) finished it up.

After serving there was still the shell of the squash left, so I scraped all the soup mix out, and ate it, and sliced up the remains of the shell and put it in the oven to soften a bit more - I'll use that to make another squash soup later in the week to take into work.

Preserving from the garden

Our lovely apple tree has been dropping apples since late July and I'm struggling to keep up with it. Last year we froze peeled,cored and sliced apples by the pound, but I wanted to be a bit more creative this year, so have tried a few apple and chilli jam recipes.
In the two jam recipes I use a mix of brown sugar and jam sugar which helps achieve a nice set, in the jelly recipe in which I wanted a slightly looser consistency, I just used light brown sugar

Apple and chilli jam
800g of peeled, cored and roughly chopped apples
2 de-seeded very finely diced chillis
800g brown sugar/jam sugar mix

Gently heat the apples with the sugar until it has all dissolved. Turn up the heat and continue to heat until the apples start to soften and break down, add the diced chillis. Continue to heat until the jam reaches the 'jam point' and the surface wrinkles when a drop is put onto a cooled saucer. Pot and seal in sterilised jam jars

Apple and chilli jelly
3lb of chopped apples (no need to peel and core_
finely diced chilli (amount required depend how spicy you like it)
Light brown sugar (exact amount depends on the yield of apple 'juice'

Heat the apples with a splash of water to prevent it burning, and continue to simmer and stir so they break down.
Take the mushy apples and strain through a jelly bag. For every pint of apple 'juice', add a pound of sugar. Gently heat and stir the sugar and apple juice mix until the sugar has dissolved, then turn the heat up. As the jelly mix reaches the 'jam point' add the diced chillis. Once the surface wrinkles when placed on a cooled sauced, pot and seal in sterilised jars

Apple, marrow and chilli jam
200g peeled, de-seeded and chopped marrow
300g peeled cored and chopped apples
finely diced chilli (amount depends on how spicy you like it)
500g brown sugar

Gently heat the chopped apple and marrow with the sugar until it has all dissolved. Turn up the heat and continue to heat until the apple and marrow start to soften and break down, add the diced chillis. Continue to heat until the jam reaches the 'jam point' and the surface wrinkles when a drop is put onto a cooled saucer. Pot and seal in sterilised jam jars

Left to right: Apple and chilli jelly, Apple and chilli jam, Apple, marrow and chilli jam

 For a better description of the jam point and how best to sterilise jars go to the ever reliable Delia: http://www.deliaonline.com/how-to-cook/preserves/ten-steps-to-jam-making.html

Sweetcorn

My favourite thing about this time of year in terms of food from
the garden:  picking corn on the cob for tea.

This year I have grown a different variety from previous years, normally I grow 'supersweet' but I couldn't find the seeds anywhere this spring), and while the taste is good, most of the plants only have one cob and are pretty small, so I'll go back to supersweet next year.

And this is the very best bit - removing the husk,dropping them in to boiling water for a couple of minutes and eating slathered with butter!

Blackberry time

Yay! its blackberry time. After last year's bumper crop I didn't think we'd have so many again but there's a whopping harvest to be had out there, so I'm making the most of the morning dog walk and picking as I go.

I had a look through the homemade jam cupboard before I started making anything and as there were still about 10 pots of blackberry jams and jellies left from 2013, it seemed silly to make more. So, having loved the blackberry cordial and syrup I made last year, and regretting that it was used up all too soon I made that again.

Its been a kitchen-y kind of day so I've also made some wild-plum jam as the tree at the bottom of the garden is heavy with them (and most of what I have used so far is windfalls, I haven't even started picking from the tree properly yet).

Blackberry cordial, blackberry syrup and wild plum jam

The Blackberry cordial recipe is here: http://poppylkitchen.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/foraging-produce-2013.html

Blackberry syrup
(from Pamela Michael's 'Edible wild plants and herbs')

Blackberries and sugar in kilner jar before heating

Put 1lb of blackberries and 1/2lb of sugar into a kilner jar and place into a pan with water around it - bring to the boil and then simmer for an hour. Sieve the contents into a pan and add a further 1/2lb of sugar, bring to the boil again, dissolve  the sugar and keep boiling for a further 5 minutes. Pour into a clean sterile bottle and cork.

Chocolate Torte for Liz

At a BBQ recently I made a couple of chocolate tortes for pudding. They didn't turn out as well as they have  in the past  - I couldn't find the recipe, and was using an unfamiliar kitchen - but I have in the past made some really brilliant chocolate torte and here is the recipe.
(This one's for you Liz!)

Chocolate torte - New Years Eve 2012

Start with 200g of good quality melted chocolate (the darker the better in theory but I always use milk chocolate). Add 200g of melted butter/margarine and mix till well combined. Then slowly beat in 4 medium sized eggs.

Mix in 200g of brown sugar  and then add 100g of a plain flour/ground almonds mix (I tend to up the almonds and decrease the flour for a richer torte)

I usually add about 25g of cocoa powder and some vanilla essence too at this point.

Pour into a greased lined cake tin and bake for about 35 mins at gas mark 4. It should be slightly squidgy inside with a nice crisp crust on top. Fab served with chantilly cream and fresh berries!

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!

The wildflower bed

One of the beds in the garden when we arrived had a horrible straggly hedge along it, and all sorts of rubbish dumped beneath it. It was completely wasted space, and I was keen to put more plants in to provide food for both us and all the animals and insects that visit the garden.
So out came the hedge, the bed was cleared of all the rubbish, and in went a wild plum hedge (with some wild pears and a few others thrown in too). I then spent the next 6 months planting wildflowers seeds and plants that will need to be in a permanent position (cardoons and jerusalem artichokes)

In all these pictures it is the hedge/bed on the very right hand side of the pictures (although you can also track the changes to other bits of the garden in these pictures)

March 2013: its unclear that there is even a bed under all the plastic rubbish, book case and the straggly hedge....

April 2013: ...yes there is a bed under there, straggly hedge still there, but most of the rubbish has been removed

May 2013: and now the hedge has been removed too

May 2013: with the wild plum hedge in and two cardoons planted too

June 2013: the wild flowers are starting to take over and the hedge is growing well

September 2013: the bed is looking very lush with lots of wildflowers getting established

May 2014: the wildflower bed -  the wild plum hedge survived the July 2013 heatwave (thanks to all the waterbutts). Lots of wildflowers are in the bed now: salsify, red campion, white nettle, poppies, forget-me-nots. Its buzzing with all sorts of insect activity now.