garden & kitchen

The Kings Seeds catalogue is here. It is normally a moment (stretching into week/fortnight/month) of huge excitment for me. I was a bit less sure when this one arrived - could I justify buying seeds when I was gardening so much less this year? But it is holidays at the moment and there will be another fortnight in October and I do sneak out and get little little bits done outside of holidays.

So I have gotten excited and I have had the highlighter pen out. Here is a sample of seeds I am seriously considering:
tomato oregon spring
winter greens (mixture of arugula, minutina & miners lettuce)
tamarillo best red (I've picked out a frost protected spot for it for this time)
pumpkin baby bear
mesclun simply red
leek lungo della riviera or leek winter giant (the practical or the romantic sounding one?)
carrot amsterdam forcing (it says "easy to grow")
St Johns Wort
Evening Primrose

I haven't indulged in the flower section. Yet.

I did go outside and do a little weeding and also began to plan the garden for the next 6-8 months. I am going to clear out the punga raised bed and add more compost and soil. Still considering exactly what to put in, but I am resisting the braod bean urge. Every winter I get the broad bean urge because it is the only thing I can plant apart from garlic right now and every spring we don't like eating them. Wait Sandra wait.

I started to fill the fridge and tummies again after a week off. Here is my revised

hummous recipe

1 mostly drained can of chickpeas. (390g from Delmaine is my first choice)
3 cloves of garlic, peeled & roughly chopped
2 heaped dessertspoons of tahini
juice of 1-2 lemons
rocket leaves
flat leaved parsley leaves
olive &/or avocado oil

Whizz first six ingredients together in a food processor or with a whizzy stick. I cut off the bottom parts of the rocket but leave the stalk in. I add the parlsey leaves but leave out the parsley stalk. Then add a slosh or two or even three of oil and whizz it some more. Done. Cover and keep in the fridge.

I've been upping the lemon and tahini slowly this year. Today was my first experiment with rocket hummous and I loved it.

Sometimes I soak and cook the chickpeas from scratch. But I make hummous a lot and often when I am in a big hurry. Chickpea cans rock when you are making it at 6.45am on Tuesday morning in order to pump up the flavour and protein in, er, butter sandwiches for lunches.

I also made rhubarb cake today, though forgetting the milk from the recipe wasn't the very best thing to do. So then I had a crack at making proper custard to have for pudding with the rhubarb cake. All good for the adults and Fionn moved from complaining about rhubarb to eating the cake and complaining about the custard. I grew up with custard from the Edmonds packet (wonderful poured on hot cooked apricots) but panna cotta in Spain was so divine that I've wanted it ever since. Now that I realise that cooking things in a dish of water is not terribly difficult, have knocked down that psychological barrier, there will be more custard in my kitchen.

Comments

Leanne said…
I've been buying my king seeds local - which has meant I have to buy the Catalogue you have tempted me!
Sandra said…
It's worth the temptation Leanne!
Najma Batool said…
You have great work, Keep Sharing.

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