You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August 2009.
Following on from yesterday’s post, mom cracked open a jar of the freshly made plum jam for breakfast today. She spread a slice of organic white bread with some butter and topped it with a dollop of plum jam.
It was a gorgeous amber jelly, just holding together enough to be great for spreading.
We all had a nibble. It was just sweet enough, with a soft and subtle plum taste. Not too overpowering, with a lovely smooth, slippery texture.
My recommendation: find some local plums and get making your own homemade plum jam. Perfect for Christmas presents, and in the depths of winter you’ll be pleased of a little slice of summer for breakfast.
N and I are spending a lovely weekend at home with my family in the Cotswolds. Today my mom and I made plum jam from using plums from her garden. She has a tree that is positively groaning under the weight of plums, many boughs almost touching the ground.
With a large basketful we seated ourselves in a sunny spot in the garden and began the task of pitting all the plums.
The saucepan was laden down with nearly 7lbs of plums. The saucepan was popped onto the hob and brought to a simmer. This was then followed by long periods of checking to see whether the plums were turning into jam.
Once the jam had begun to set when smeared onto a plate, it was removed and placed into sterilised jars (they’d been put through the dishwasher). We made about 13 jarfuls. Not sure how it will taste – will have to let you know when we try it.
My mom insists I can’t share the recipe, not because it’s a closely guarded family secret, but because she’s not sure it’s very good. Will let you know how it rates on a crusty piece of grain bread with a good layer of butter.
This is a totally un-food/garden/allotment related post. This post is because I love my little sister SO much. She is incredibly talented and needs your help. She entered a competition to design a video for an anti-bullying campaign and is one of three finalists!
I can’t think there are many of us who haven’t been affected by bullying, so please support this campaign by going and watching the three videos, and hopefully you’ll agree that Izzy’s (the little sister) is great. If you do, please please vote for her – you can vote as many times as you like.
Vote here (Izzy’s is the first video with her name spelt ‘Issy’: http://www.sugarscape.com/main-topics/homepage/394603/vote-you-favourite-suso-video
This is her video:
I’ll be back next week with more food-related goodies.
So on the way home from work, N and I met up at our allotment to dig up what seems like ten tons of potatoes. They are happily stored away in an assortment of saved paper bags. I took a wander round the allotments and took some snaps of the lovely plots that other people have – none of mine this time, it’s looking more like I’m cultivated weeds…
The nice man who owns the plot next to us is growing these beauties…
And another plot that is stunning and designed like a garden complete with lawn and benches has a fence that is partly covered in a vine. In amongst that vine are these dark, glossy green squash…
There are purple beans…
Giant cabbages…
Yellow courgettes and their delicate flowers…
Greenhouses overflowing with ripening tomatoes…
…fattening cucumbers…
…and onions drying…
There is corn as tall as me…
Blackberries are turning in the brambles surrounding the allotments…
Apple trees are groaning beneath the weight of their laden bows…
There are pears plumping up…
And fat marrows discarded by the path…
One lucky plot owner has in one small space two types of apple and a plum tree at the back, all of which are sagging, heavy with fruit…
The final burst of sweetpeas are overshadowed by their neighbours…
Mallows, hollyhocks and scrambling nasturtiums are taking over where the poppies were…
And jolly sunflowers bob in the breeze…
My allotment offers up one final surprise of early summer – another crop of ruby red strawberries, sweet and juicy…
Very excitingly I have been nominated for a Dorset Cereal ‘Little Blog Award’. I know I’ve been pretty lax on posting over the past week, but I promise I’ll get back into the swing – a busy return to work after being off ill has left me rather stressed and consequently eating a lot of bad things that are not worth sharing.
If you’ve got a moment to pop over to the Dorset Cereal’s website and vote for me I’d be so pleased. You can also find lots of other lovely blogs listed there too. Just click on the ‘vote for me’ image in the lefthand column of my blog.
Lovage says “please vote for us!”
I thought it was about time for a cake recipe (a little later than planned). I love cake. Most of all chocolate cake, but also lemon drizzle cake, Victoria sponge, pound cakes and cupcakes.
What better way to cheer oneself up than with a delicious homemade cake. That mouthwatering smell that wafts from the oven as it bakes away. It’s almost too much to bear. And then there’s the difficult decision about what to ice it with, if anything – melted chocolate or chocolate butter icing, or just as it is, warm from the oven.
Whatever you decide, it will be scrumptious. You will come down the next morning to find your boyfriend/husband/child has taken a HUGE chunk and run off to work with it. You will then eat an equally large chunk. For breakfast.
Use the best quality cocoa powder you can find – Green’s & Black is pretty nice. Usually I cook cakes in round tins, but this time I chose to bake it in a tray so it could be cut into chunks which are much easier to fit into lunchboxes.
Chocolate Cake
80z caster sugar
8oz butter (room temperature)
4 eggs
4 tbsp milk
8oz self raising flour
2oz cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
Preheat your oven to 180°C.
Line and/or grease your cake tin with a smear of butter and some greaseproof paper.
In a bowl cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Slowly add the eggs one at a time.
In a separate small bowl, mix together the cocoa powder and milk to form a paste – add a little more milk if needed.
Mix the cocoa paste into the cake batter.
Sieve the flour and baking powder into the batter and gently fold in.
Pour the mixture into your cake tin and pop in the oven for about 30 minutes. You can test to see if it’s cooked by inserting a skewer – it should come out clean.
An absolute classic, timelessly tasty and always popular with friends. At its most basic, tomatoes and basil, but here I’ve added in a little crumbled feta.
Mixed Tomato and Basil Salad
Feeds 2 as part of a meal
100g red plum cherry tomatoes
100g yellow cherry tomatoes
Handful of fresh basil
Feta cheese
Dash of balsamic vinegar
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper
Cut the tomatoes into halves or quarters and pop into your serving dish.
Tear over the fresh basil.
Add a dash of balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
Crumble over the feta and season with salt and pepper.
Eat!
We ate our salads with cheese – a Danish blue cheese called Castello (available from -the dreaded- supermarket) and a sheep’s cheese called Brebirousse Argental (one of my absolute favourites and available from Barbakan Deli in Manchester).
To finish it off we had a plate of slightly toasted Polish black bread, that we rubbed with garlic and smeared with olive oil.
Yum yum yum.
Coming tomorrow: Chocolate Cake
Marinated Green Beans
Feeds 2 as part of a meal
Good handful of French green beans (enough for two people)
1 small shallot
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
Glug of white wine vinegar
Extra virgin olive oil
Small bunch of flat leaf parsley
Salt and pepper
Pop a pan of salted water on to boil.
Wash and cut the tops of the green beans. Once the water is boiling, drop the beans in and cook for about 5 minutes. Drain them and set aside.
To make the marinade, finely slice the shallot and pop it in a bowl. Add the Dijon mustard and a glug of white wine vinegar and give it a good mix.
Add the warm beans to the marinade and mix well.
Chop up the parsley and add it to the bowl along with a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Give it another good mix and season with salt and pepper.
This salad is best served after the beans have had a chance to marinate in the shallot, mustard and vinegar mixture, so make this ahead of time – 15-20 minutes is great.
Up next: Mixed Tomato and Basil Salad
So when the sun briefly appeared last week, our stomachs grumbled for the delights of fresh summer salads and dinner on the patio. I whipped up three easy salads – I call them salads, but in fact they could also be side dishes, or part of another meal – some toast and cheese.
My three ’salads’: Piemontese Peppers, Marinated Green Beans, and a Mixed Tomato and Basil Salad.
Piemontese Peppers
*These are my version of Tamasin Day-Lewis’ Piemontese Peppers, minus the anchovies as we didn’t have them, and done under the grill…I couldn’t wait 40 minutes for them to cook in the oven!*
Feeds 2 as part of a meal
1 red pepper
couple of small tomatoes (cherry ones are great)
1 clove of garlic
some feta cheese
extra virgin olive oil
sprig of thyme
salt and pepper
Preheat your grill on a medium setting.
Cut your pepper in half and carefully remove the stalk and seeds. Halve them again and place on your grill pan.
Dice up the tomatoes and pop a few chunks into each quarter of pepper.
Next, thinly slice the clove of garlic and add a couple of slithers to the peppers.
Sprinkle over some thyme leaves, followed by a good drizzling of olive oil and season with salk and pepper.
Bung under the grill and cook until soft and starting to char at the edges (don’t forget about them like I did or you’ll have to remove some of the more singed bits!).
Remove to a plate and crumble over some feta cheese.
Serve warm or at room temperature – also a great dish you can prepare ahead of time and pop in the fridge until you’re ready to eat.
Up next: Marinated Green Beans
Have been super busy this weekend – primarily recovering from my terrible flu (just a bit of a cough remaining) and soaking up some sun. I’ve got some lovely food and recipes to share with you from the last week, including a delicious selection of summer salads and a scrumptious and super easy chocolate cake recipe.
I leave you with a picture of the super duper carrot I pulled from my veg bed – what a whopper! And very tasty.
Recent Comments