Tuesday 25 June 2013

Vegetarian Lasagna with Cauliflower Sauce



I used minimal sauce and cheese in this recipe but it could easily be increased for a creamier, more comforting dish.
Cauliflower Sauce
Ingredients
  • 800g cauliflower
  • 800ml stock [I used chicken so not technically vegetarian but easily rectified..]
  • 60ml milk
  • Pinch salt and pepper
Method
Boil the cauliflower in the stock until it begins to soften
Blitz with the milk and add salt and pepper to taste.

Lasagna



Ingredients
  • 5 sheets of lasagna pasta
  • 1kg mixed chopped veg [I used carrots, pak choi, onion, yellow bell pepper and some tinned tomatoes]
  • Your already prepared cauliflower sauce
  • Grated cheese to personal preference [I used mozzarella and cheddar
Method
Pre-heat the oven to Gas 5/190ºC/375ºF
Boil the pasta for a few minutes
In an oven proof dish, layer your sauce, veg, pasta and cheese as desired
Cover dish with foil and bake for 25 minutes
Remove the foil and bake for 15 more minutes
Remove from oven and enjoy!




Wednesday 19 June 2013

My Garden: 19th June 2013


Spying slug damage starting to appear on some of my broad bean pods, I cut my losses and stripped the plants bare, blanching and freezing the remains of the crop. As we’ve been eating beans straight of the plant for the last six weeks, I’m pretty happy with the results. I strongly recommend planting your broad beans in Autumn [as is often recommended] because I shudder at the thought of how depleted my crop would have been if the young beans had to contend with the slugs and aphids of spring and summer.





Shelled beans ready for blanching and freezing. Time will tell how successfully I’ve preserved their taste…





In three weeks, my pea hedge has gone from this:





To this:






Branch parts stuck in the ground are proving good supports with a natural look.
Sweetcorn plants are almost ready for planting out. I’ve learned that the male flowers emerge before the female so to assist pollination in a small crop, collect pollen from the male flowers into an envelope and hand pollinate the female flowers when they emerge. Sweetcorn is naturally wind pollinated and best grown in blocks rather than lines, to assist the process.


Beetroot is coming on, and I’m planting a few more seeds every now and then. Looking forward to eating the young leaves


Radishes are protected by plastic bottles because it doesn’t take a big fat slug too much time to munch through a sweet little radish.


I hope the spuds look as good underground as they do overground



After a failure of tomato plant seedlings, I managed to salvage two plants so hopefully I’ll still manage to have a late small crop


Last year, we ate our first Brussel Sprouts on Christmas Day and they were beautiful so hoping for an even better crop this year.


And inside, my cactus is getting ready to flower its beautiful bloom that it bestows upon me once a year. It’s coming late this year. It has flowered as early as April some years.


This is how it looked last year:

Tuesday 11 June 2013

Beautiful Baked Eggs and Smoked Fish



Ingredients per ramekin
  • 15g butter plus extra for greasing
  • Dash olive oil
  • One egg
  • Large handful spinach [it shrinks considerably when cooked]
  • 50g smoked fish shredded (mackerel, salmon or kippers for example)
  • Tablespoon pouring cream
  • Pinch nutmeg, freshly grated if you can get it






Method
Preheat the oven to Gas 4/180ºC/350ºF
Grease the ramekin with butter
Heat the butter and oil in a pan and wilt the spinach for 2-3 mins
Remove and squeeze out any liquid
Finely chop and mix with half the cream, nutmeg and salt and pepper if desired
Mix in the shredded fish
Put the fish mix into the base of the ramekin, crack the egg on top and pour over the remaining cream
Bake in oven for 20 minutes, allow to cool and turn over in the hope that it all stays together [I didn’t take a photo of the second one that fell apart :)]
Enjoy!


Sunday 2 June 2013

Feed Your Garden With Comfrey









Also known for it's medicinal qualities, comfrey is invaluable for your garden's health. Hardy and persistent, it can be easily grown from a cutting or a piece of root. The above photos are from a patch I found growing by the river in my local park. I started off my own plant using a tiny cutting I got at the beginning of March:




It looked like this by May 4th:





And is established and strong by September:



It is invasive so position with care.

Garden benefits of comfrey


The plant is high in Nitrogen which is especially good for leafy salad crops and brassicas [cabbages/broccoli]. It is also an effective tomato feed and good for sweetcorn. It can also be added to your compost heap and works as an activator.

Making the tea


The plant is ready for cutting when it reaches two feet high.

You can use the leaves as a mulch but the most effective way to use comfrey is to steep the leaves in water and make a "tea". I have a very simple way of brewing comfrey tea using an empty plastic milk bottle. I shred some mature leaves, put them in the bottle, fill with water and leave to brew inside the greenhouse for a week or so. The smell can be over-powering to put it mildly, so this method means you can get it from the bottle to the plant as quickly as possible.

If you want to make large quantities of the feed, fill a barrel with water, submerge a large amount of the leaves and weigh them down with a brick or something equally heafy. Cover with a secure lid and allow to steep until it smells like the inside of a sewer! If you are accessing the liquid through a tap, put the leaves in an empty onion bag to prevent them clogging the tap.

The longer you leave the brew to cook, the more concentrated it will become so dilute to make a weak tea-coloured liquid.

Nettles can be used in the same way.