If your shed looks anything like mine you will have tons of onions still left hanging. And with all this mild weather we’ve been having here in the UK you’re probably thinking, ‘hmm… I should really eat those before they start to sprout”. I decided to shift some of mine with this great recipe that I found in Delia’s Kitchen Garden book - it cunningly uses lots of onions which is exactly what I want. I’ve changed the recipe a bit to make it a bit easier for my simple ‘office brain’ - I really can’t content with making pastry from scratch after a hard day at work. So here goes:
Caramelised Onion Tarlets
1 pack of ready rolled shortcrust pastry
25g butter
3 large onions (yey!)
2 large eggs beaten
half teaspoon mustard powder
175ml or single cream
75g of goats cheese
Cayenne pepper
salt & pepper
- You’ll need a muffin pan or similar to put cook the tartlets in. First, line each cup with pastry cut out into circles. The pastry won’t fit neatly but I think that’s half the charm.
- Next chop the onions finely and place in a pan with the butter. Cook until brown and caramelised. This took around 40 minutes at a low heat. If there is excess moisture in the pan pour it off and continue cooking.
- Next whisk the eggs, cream, mustard powder and cayenne pepper in a bowl.
- To arrange, put one or two tablespoons of onion in each cup place a small square of goats cheese in each one and fill with the cream mixture until full. Be careful that the mixture doesn’t overflow.
- Bake on a medium heat until golden on top.
While reading the ‘Kitchen Gardens of Heligan’ I made an amazing discovery. It seems that the popular idea that carrots like sandy soil is a myth. They don’t! They just like soil that doesn’t have any stones in it and generally sandy soils are devoid of stones hence the begining of the myth. So, if you can afford a small army of boys to pick out all the stones in your soil (as the Victorians did) or you fancy doing it yourself then you can practically grow carrots anywhere.
Surprisingly, the broadbeans I planted a few days ago are already showing! Once I had planted the soaked beans I put them in the airing cupboard to keep them warm. Then once the soil showed that tell-tale mound in the middle I moved them to the windowsill. I’ll be putting them out under the cloche in a few days.
I was mooching around a stamp shop over Christmas with Ryan’s dad and I found a set of stamps designed to commemorate kitchen gardening and farming. For £1.80 I couldn’t pass up the chance to add this beauty to my (as yet non-existent) stamp collection.
Things are pretty slow at the moment but I managed to find one or two jobs to do this morning before the rain started:
Emptied out my large compost bin (mainly because it has rats living below it)
Spread some compost around the base of my two blackcurrant bushes (to deter weeds and feed them a little).
Dug in some compost in the potato patch ready for this year’s planting
Soaked some Broadbean seeds and planted them in pots
Planted another 6 cloves of garlic as the batch I planted before Christmas are now showing
Mr Toad and Pumpkin Soup both kindly tagged me and now it seems I have to join in the fun and tell you five things about me that you may or may not know. Let’s see…
- I run my own company with my husband Ryan. We build software and run conferences for designers and developers. We have a lot of fun doing it.
- The hat isn’t mine - I stole it!
- When I dance I look like a Velocaraptor, apparently.
- If you want to be friends with me you must first accept that celery is the devil’s food. I hate the smell of it, the feel of it, the crunchiness of it, and particularly the taste of it. I can only tolerate it as a stirring stick in a Bloody Mary. Then, and only then is it okay.
- My cat is offically called Marty (because Ryan wouldn’t let me call him Smarty) but myself and Marty both know that his ‘real’ name is Smarty and the tag around his neck lies!
And the links…
- Carsonified! - he thinks he’s above all this but let’s see shall we?
- My Tiny Farm - what a fab name!
- Farmgirl Fare - anyone who builds their own bakery is cool in my book
- Calendula & Concrete - a beautifully written blog.
Last year my lettuce were attacked by lettuce root aphids (like normal aphids but they attach to the roots instead of leaves). I’m told they are a fairly rare pest but once they are in the soil you’re pretty much stuck with them unless you take action. Some of the lettuce varieties I chose last year (Little Gem, and Lobjots Green) seem to have little will to fight the aphids. While others (Salad Bowl, Four Seasons and Webs Wonder) seem to be able to withstand the attack to some extent. Although, later in the season the pests got to be too much even for the fighters and made their leaves go limp and yellow. I absolutely love salad in the summer and can’t let anything jepordise my leisurely summer lunches with fresh crunchy salad. So I’ve done a bit of investigating and have found that there are two varieties of lettuce that have resistance to lettuce root aphid. They are Mohican and Sunny. They’re available in Moles Catalogue but since they are a trade supplier you can only buy them by the 1000’s! In the photo you can see my attempts at growing early lettuce this year - too leggy and not enough light I think.
Firstly let me me apologise for the graphic photo. This is one of my butternut squashes harvested in October along with some Futsu and Uchiki Kuri varieties that I grew last year. Although, I took great pains to dry them out properly and harden their skins, two of the three types have gone to rot (the Futsu already rotted a few weeks ago). The only one still going strong is Uchiki Kuri. It’s interesting to see which varieties last longer than others. The Futsu pumkins seem to have been the most vulnerable of the three as their skin didn’t harden very much. The butternut squashes lasted well and we only had to waste one of the 8 we harvested. But the Uchiki Kuri are the winners in the race for the longest storage. Three months and going strong! They’ll definitely make it onto the growing plan next year.
I’ve been browsing the seed catalogues and I have to say I’m a sucker for some nice layout and good photography. Some of the seed catalogues are just lists of text, with the odd picture thrown in here and there. That’s no good for me, I want to look at the pretty pictures! With that in mind I have chosen my favourite seed catalogues (above). They are Moles Seeds (nice photos, large format and you get a free year planner). Plants of Distinction (I used it to order my cut flowers this year). Simply Vegetables (an amazing array of unusual varieties, beautifully photographed). Ken Muir (the ultimate fruit buying experience) and Marshalls (recently redesigned and practically perfect in every way). As an ex-magazine editor I can appreciate good layout and Marshalls has it all. Clean, readable, tips as you go, with some sharp photography. I was all ready to empty my bank account when I popped over to Allotments 4 All and read this post about what a rip off seed catalogues are. I must admit I was a bit downhearted after reading this. There’s no Wilkinsons near me and as I work full time I haven’t got time to drive to the nearest one. But it also got me thinking - most of us are not growing vegetables as a necessity anymore, it’s more of a hobby than a real need so why do we need to scout out the cheapest possible deal? Of course, I don’t want to get ripped off just like the next guy but I also don’t want to spend my Saturday tramping around Wiltshire looking for a £2 bag of seed potatoes. Maybe, I’m a child of my time but if I can buy something online for a little extra then I’ll do it.
It’s time to crack open the compost and see what’s inside. This particular compost pile hasn’t been used for a long time. It’s my neighbour’s and he kindly allowed me to meddle in it. He’s been adding kitchen waste, Christmas trees, horse manure and lawn cuttings to it for the past 5 years! He didn’t have a kitchen garden so he had no reason to use it. Until now! We opened it up and found this lovely dark, crumbly compost. It went straight on to the garden to let the worms do their job. This is how compost should be.
