My Tiny Plot

It’s blackcurrant time! Yey. One of my favourite times of the year. At mtp we have two blackcurrant bushes that I inherited from the previous owners. I’ve no idea what variety they are or indeed in the first year any clue how to prune them. But last year I picked up a natty pruning tip from one of my neighbours (more on that later) and it’s worked a treat.
But what to make with all those blackcurrants? Of course I’m making some more Cassis as we did last year, but that takes months to mature – we needed to eat some of those plump, dark, berries now – heck, even the leaves smell good enough to eat! As it was a hot day we decided on some Blackcurrant Juice.

Firstly, you’ll need a basket full of blackcurrants. The trick with the pruning is to harvest the whole branch instead of each individual berry. This is good for two reasons: first you you can pick off the berries in the comfort of your own garden, secondly you are effectively pruning the bush as you go since Blackcurrants fruit on new wood and so the branches you have taken would be pruned anyway.

Blackcurrant Juice

• 5 or 6 branches of blackcurrants
• 100g of sugar – more if you like it sweet
• 1 pint of water
• 3 or 4 cloves

Method

1. Firstly wash and rinse the blackcurrants.
2. Then put them in a pan with a little water and the cloves
3. cook on a high heat until the berries start to break down. Squash the berries against the side of the pan a little.
4. Next add the rest of the water to the pan and cook for around 15 mins
5. Strain the juice making sure to squash the berries against the side of the sieve to get all the juice out
6. Pour into a jug and chill in the fridge
7. To serve make sure to add ice to each glass for a super-chilled blackcurrant juice experience.

Potato salad is such a great little meal. You can make it, chuck it in the fridge and be eating it for days. We took ours to Cornwall on our weekend roadtrip and had a picnic at Roadchef (not the most idyllic of settings but hey it’s the best the M5 had to offer at that point). This is the basic version plus some (usefully in-season) Broadbeans.

Broadbean & New Potato Salad

Ingredients:

• 4-5 new potatoes (more if they are small)
• 6 Broadbean pods
• 3 spring onions
• 3 eggs
• 3 tablespoons good quality French Mayonnaise
• salt/pepper to taste

Method:

1. Wash the potatoes and cut into bite sized chunks
2. Remove beans from pod and also remove their ‘chewy’ jackets too (time consuming but so worth it!)
3. Boil potatoes until tender and throw in the beans for the last minute of cooking
4. Hard boil the eggs peel and chop
5. Throw everything in a bowl with the chopped spring onions and mayonnaise – give it a good stir and season
6. Eat warm or chill in the fridge

I don’t grow Asparagus. When I first got the keys to mtp I was convinced that I wouldn’t have the plot long enough to warrant planting Asparagus. Plus I’m pretty impatient, and waiting two years before getting a crop seemed like way too much forward planning for me in my veg growing infancy. Boy do I regret that decision! If I had planted one-year-old crowns in my first year I could be cooking this recipe with my own, home-grown, lovingly picked Asparagus. Instead, I’m working with Morrison’s finest. Ah well…

Asparagus and Gruyere Tart

Ingredients

• 1 pack of Ready Rolled puff pastry (okay I’m lazy)
• bundle of fresh Asparagus (Delia says British is best)
• Around 200g of Gruyere cheese
• flour, butter, milk, bay leaf (for white sauce)
• Parmesan for topping

Method:

1. Roll out pastry to a square. Score around the edge of the tart 1 inch from the edge
2. Arrange Asparagus in neat rows within the inner square
3. Bake for around 10 minutes until the edges of the tart have started to rise
4. Meanwhile make the white sauce by whisking all the ingredients for the sauce in a small pan
5. Chop the Gruyere cheese and add to the sauce. Stir until melted
6. Pour the sauce over the Asparagus and cook in a medium oven until the top is brown
7. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over the finished tart

If, like me, you have mint plants popping up all over the place and taking over your garden then you’ll be grateful to find a recipe that uses up the mint, tastes amazing and is a cinch to make. This is the best omelet ever.

Goat’s Cheese and Mint Souffled Omelet
Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 100g goats cheese (the soft rindless kind)
• Parmesan cheese
• 5 or 6 mint leaves
• salt and pepper

Method:

1. Whisk eggs, goat’s cheese and mint together with salt and pepper to taste
2. Heat oil in a frying pan and pour in
3. Cook on high for one minute until base is browned
4. Turn down heat to lowest setting and place lid on fryingpan. Leave to cook for 10 minutes
5. Remove lid (omelet should be puffed up like a souffle) – sprinkle on some Parmesan

The result is a fantastic lemony-tasting light omelet. I served it with Balsamic onions for a strong, sticky flavour.

In an effort to use up the last two leeks I had in the ground I made some Potato and Leek soup. The potatoes are Robinta, harvested last summer.

• 2 x large leeks
• 3 medium potatoes
• 1 small onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 100ml of milk
• butter
• salt and pepper

First de-grit and chop the leeks into small pieces. The only way I have found of getting all the grit out of leeks is to slice them down the middle and open up all the layers under a stream of water. Nothing else seems to work for me.
Next chop the onion and fry the leek, onion and garlic in the butter.
Peel and chop the potatoes and bring to the boil in a enough water to just cover the potatoes.
When the potatoes are soft pour the whole lot (water and all) into a processor. Add the leek mixture and the milk. Blend until smooth.
Transfer back to the pan and re-heat. Season with salt and pepper.
In this recipe I added a spoonful of Greek yoghurt but it didn’t really work – the flavour was too sharp – so next time I’d do it without the yoghurt.
Bye bye leeks until next year…

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.

A couple of days ago I bottled up my cassis that had been laying in a bottle since July. The amount of liquid that resulted was smaller than I had hoped but still, you don’t want too much of a good thing (especially when it’s mostly vodka.) I got the recipe from The Cook and the Gardener and apparently the author got the recipe in turn from Madame Milbert, so if it doesn’t taste good then I have a few people I can blame instead of me. The cassis is prepared in two parts:
Firstly you need to pick enough blackcurrants to fill a large bottle. Wash them and pack them in. Then pour vodka over them and fill to the top. Seal and leave until the first week in December.
Strain the berries over a pan, squashing them to bring out the last bits of juice. What you should have is blackcurrant flavoured vodka (good enough for anyone, you might think) but the next stage is to make it thicken. Measure how much liquid you have and then add equal parts of both sugar and vodka. I have a quarter of a pint, so I added a quart of a pint of sugar and the same of vodka. Bring it to the boil until it starts to thicken but don’t let it get to the jelly stage. Bottle it into sterilised jars. And there you have Cassis – ready for Kir Royale on Christmas day!

I have far too many pumpkins now, so I found a recipe to make pumpkin chutney. I have amended it somewhat for our own tastes and I didn’t have any fresh ginger so I used dried.

Ingredients:
half a pumpkin diced
1 cooking apple (cored peeled & diced)
1 small red onion (diced)
1 teaspoon ginger
1 tbs mustard seeds
pinch cayenne pepper
400ml distilled vinegar
200g soft brown sugar
1 tbs salt

Put all ingredients except sugar & salt in a preserving pan, mix well, bring to the boil & simmer for up to 30 mins until the pumpkin has softened but still has a little bite to it. Add the sugar & salt stirring until dissolved; simmer until chutney has reduced to the thickness you are looking for. Bottle as usual.

So these little fellas are my Futsu pumpkins. I bought the seeds from The Organic Catalogue, and in the photo the pumpkin looked a lovely shade of golden brown. But, as you can see, this is a far cry from what we have here. How did this mutation happen? – you might ask. This is what I asked myself when the fruits began to form. So I did some research online and found that the seeds are a Japanese Black Futsu that looks like this now but when it ripens in storage should look like this. It says on the site, “This scarce, black Japanese squash with a flattened top, and heavily ribbed, round shape turns a rich chestnut color while in storage.” They are certainly not scarce on mtp – I have around 10 still to harvest!

Recipe: Stuffed Futsu Pumpkin
2 Futsu pumpkins
1 small red onion
1 clove garlic
pinch of cumin
pinch of cinnamon
cous cous soaked in veg stock
tablespoon of dried cranberries
1 cooking apple
30g of pine nuts
herbs (your choice, I did Chives)
juice of one lemon

Cut off the top of the pumpkins, and scoop out seeds to create a deep bowl. Brush with oil and roast for 25 mins or until tender. Meanwhile, fry onion garlic, add cranberries, apple and pine nuts and cous cous. Add herbs and spices, and season with lemon, salt and pepper. Pile into pumpkin bowls, top with cheese (if you like), replace the lid and cook for 10 mins. Eat!

I went away for a few days and when I came back virtually ‘all’ the redcurrants are ready for picking. There are probably another four or five basket-loads left on the bushes. I read in The Cook and The Gardener that if you use fresh redcurrants to make Redcurrant Jelly then you don’t need to add Pectin because the berries have it naturally. So I decided to use this recipe:

Red Currant Jelly
3 lbs. fresh red or black currants, washed & stems removed
3 cups sugar
sterilized canning jars

Method:

1. Put the berries and 1/3 cup of water in a large saucepan and cook about 8 minutes over med-high heat.
2. Remove from heat and mash the fruit with a potato masher or back of a wooden spoon.
3. Strain through a fine sieve into a large measuring cup, pressing on the solids to remove all of the juice.
4. Place a small plate in the freezer.
5. Pour the juice into a saucepan and stir in the sugar. Place over med-high heat and bring to a boil.
6. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, about 20 minutes.
7. Remove plate from freezer and place about a tablespoon of the jelly on it. If it ripples when you push it with your finger it is ready.
8. Remove the jelly from the heat and skim off any foam.
9. Ladle the jelly into the sterilized jars, wiping rims with a dishtowel. Seal well.
10. Process for 10 minutes.