Sunny Spring Sunday

It's been some time since I've done a post as I rather underestimated how long it takes to post on a regular basis so you'll need to bear with me, my brain is naturally lazy in many ways and the blog seems to have fallen foul of my lethargic ways.

Anyway.  It's a beautiful Sunday and so I've been taking advantage of it.  The tomato, aubergine, chilli and cucumber seeds that were sown almost exactly a month ago in my post Back in the garden are growing well, as you may see in the photograph.  Despite my fears for the aubergines, three of the four seeds germinated nicely and so my back-up second tray means I have quite a few extra to go to friends.  The celeriac came through a week or so after my last post, with only one seed not germinating, and they are growing slowly but surely.  The chillies have been slow with the, normally reliable, Cayenne not germinating at all.  With a second sowing they came through quickly, so I think the seed was just too old in the first batch.

Additions to the windowsill now include ten of each of the following:

Pimentos de Padron - fairly big green chillies that are very mild but deliciously fresh-tasting.  I believe they are a common tapas dish in Spain, being fried whole and sprinkled with salt flakes.  They appealled enormously when I discovered this, mainly because about one in every ten peppers is firery hot and so provides a sort of culinary Russian Roulette.  These were brand new seeds and all but one of them germinated quickly.
Tomatillo de Milpa - I first grew tomatillos last year.  They are like a cross between a tomato and a cape gooseberry.  Little green (or purple, depending on the type) tomatoes in a papery lantern.  I didn't really know how to deal with them so ended up with two enormous plants with lots of little parchment parcels dangling in great profusion.  Once picked, de-husked and washed (they have a bitter sticky liquid on them) they made a brilliant salsa that I jarred up and added to mashed avocado as and when I wanted.  Sadly it didn't store well in jars and mould developed after a month, so I'll be looking at a different way of preserving them this year.  Only three seeds germinated but that's enough if they all grow up well.
Cornichon de Paris - pickled cornichon are extremely popular in the Jones household and so I'm going to try my hand at growing and pickling my own this year after the success of the pickled onions last year.  All ten seeds have germinated and are growing vigorously.

Now we're nearing the end of March I'm starting to sow direct with the hardier veg types.  This means sowing the seeds directly into the soil where they'll grow to harvest.  I'm always a bit wary about starting this too early but now the sun is warming the beds nicely I'm butching up and getting on with it.  I start with the troughs and containers as they warm quickly and I can fleece them easily and speedily if a frost threatens.  So today I've started with carrots and pickling onions with the peas going out next weekend or the one after if it's cold.

Pickling onions

I grew these last year they were very successful.  The variety I grow are Pompei which are a type of salad onion but with a very round, white end that pickles beautifully.  These ones I got on eBay but last year I don't remember where I found them.  I grow them in a big, long trough perched up by the garage, where they get sun all day long.  It's a great way of making use of a tiny ledge of concrete.  I've just sown these today, in the troughs I used for salad last year with the top 5 inches of compost removed and replaced with nice fresh multipurpose.  Mark two shallow rows down the length of the trough not too close together, using the side of your palm, sparcely scatter the seed in the rows and cover with a thin layer of compost.  Sprinkle plenty of water over the top and leave to grow. 

Just a small aside at this point, remember to put the troughs in their final position before you water them.  Water-logged compost is really quite heavy and you'll save yourself a lot of huffing and puffing if you water once they're in place.  I wish someone had told me this.  It would have saved endless physio sessions.

Carrots

The carrots are bog-standard longish orange ones as I can't seem to find my favoured rainbow ones.  I'll order some shortly for the next sowing but I can't seem to remember where I got them from, they are a vibrant mix of orange, yellow, white and purple carrots which taste as good as they look.  I'm afraid I don't know the type of the ones used in this sowing as they came free with an order from Plants of Distinction last year but my general favourite, as I said, are Rainbow with the little, round Parmex making an odd appearance.  I prefer my carrots to be long and tapering, rather than round and bulbous.  I grow all my carrots in two deep plastic troughs so I can place them on a wall out of reach of the dreaded Carrot Root Fly.  This fly lays it's eggs on the carrots, which hatch into little larve that carve a maze of little tunnels around the carrots.  They can smell carrot tops from miles away, so makes sure when you thin your seedlings later on to take the pulled ones well away from your bed or trough.  They can only fly about 6 inches above the surface of the ground though so growing in troughs on a wall seems to thwart them but so will putting a fence of fleece around your bed.  I hate the look of fleece and netting so troughs it is.

Remember to keep watering both inside and outside seeds. With tepid water please. If someone chucked a bucket full of cold water over you it would be a nasty shock and it's the same for seeds and seedlings. Also avoid getting water on the leaves as much as possible.

Our rhubarb has started to poke it's leaves tentitively out through the thick layer of mulch and compost I covered it with last Autumn.  We don't force ours (cover it with a pot to exclude the light) so it comes up later than the attractive pink stalks hitting the shops at the moment.  I love everything about forced rhubarb and, as the vast majority of it is grown nearby in the suitably named Rhubarb Triangle in West Yorkshire, I try to buy it as much as possible when it's in season.

Whilst flicking through the most recent Waitrose magazine (yes, it seems I really am that middle class) I found the perfect recipe to utilise these coral lovelies, a baked cheesecake with a scrummy rhubarb and ginger compote.  The recipe for this is below, along with a rather poor photograph of my creation. 

We've had some friends staying this weekend so this formed the grand finale of the night's supper, following on from Lamb, Chickpea and Pear tagine from Lorraine Pascale's book Home Cooking Made Easy.  A great book actually, I had my doubts after watching an episode of the accompanying TV series in which she bizarrely seemed to mostly cook and/or present on the fire escape of her building.  Not really the time of year for lamb as everything available has hauled itself half way around the world from New Zealand but I'm making an exception as I want to make use of the last of the British pears still in the shops.  Besides, I think the spices in the tagine would overpower the delicate Welsh lamb available later on in the year.

Cheescake with Rhubarb and Ginger

Rather misleadingly called Rhubarb and Ginger Cheesecake in the magazine, it's actually a vanilla cheesecake with a rhubarb and ginger compote.  I've altered it slightly with the addition of lemon to the cheesecake mix but other than that it's pretty much the same, so thank you to Waitrose magazine, although your cooking times were a bit off.  I hasten to point out that the recipe is conveyed here in my own words, Waitrose would never use the English language in such a cavalier manner.

150g gingernut biscuits
75g unsalted butter, melted
500g curd cheese (you can only get this at the deli counter in supermarkets, although surprisingly Waitrose didn't have any so I used mascarpone instead)
200g cream cheese (full fat please, don't use light as I find it invariably never works)
150g caster sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1/2tsp vanilla extract (never essence)
1 lemon, zest and juice
170g soured cream (I used a whole 300ml pot actually)
75g granulated sugar
400g rhubarb, cut into 3cm lengths
1 ball of stem ginger in syrup, finely chopped, plus 2tbsps of the syrup

Preheat the oven to 150◦c and baseline a 20cm springform tin.  Put the gingernuts in a bag and bash them to crumbs with a rolling pin or other appropriately weighty object.  Pour into a bowl, mix in the melted butter then push into the base of the tin.  Pop in the fridge to harden.

Mix the curd cheese (or mascarpone), cream cheese, caster sugar, vanilla and the zest and juice of half the lemon.  Beat until smooth then beat in the eggs.  I use a wooden spoon as you need to start off with a spoon anyway but you can use a whisk, starting with a whisk is tricky as great lumps of cheese get stuck in the, ummm, prongs?

Pour the cheese mixture on top of the gingernut base and bake in the oven for an hour and half.  The cheesecake should have a slight wobble in the centre.  The recipe says bake for one hour but after an hour mine had a massive wobble all over so in fact it took and hour and half to reach minor wobble status.  Turn off the oven and leave the cheesecake in there for half and hour with the door ajar. 

Remove from the oven, pour over the soured cream and leave to cool overnight or for at least 4 hours, then put in the fridge for 4-6 hours.

For the rhubarb, I tripled the recipe as I love rhubarb and will use the leftovers for eating with Greek yoghurt or some such, if you do the same make sure you triple the amounts of granulated sugar, ginger, ginger syrup and lemon.  The method below is using the amounts stated above, so using 400g of rhubarb.

Put the granulated sugar in a pan with 2tbsps of water over a low heat.  Simmer until all the sugar granules have dissolved, then add the rhubard, chopped ginger, ginger syrup and the juice and zest of the other half of the lemon.  Turn up the heat and bring to the boil, then lower the heat once more and simmer for 5 minutes or until the rhubarb is soft but still mostly holding it's shape.  Put a sieve over another pan and pour the rhubarb into the sieve.  Leave to go completely cold and for the syrup to drain into the pan below.  Put the rhubarb to one side then boil the syrup in the pan until reduced in volume by half.  Reunite the syrup with the rhubarb and leave to go cold.  Then put in the fridge.

I prefer to serve this room temperature so you can taste the flavours better so remove both the cheesecake and the rhubarb from the fridge about an hour before serving.  Serve slices of the cheesecake with a great dollop of the rhubarb and ginger compote.

Always keep one eye on where you're going...

Rather a good day in the Sheffield Hospitals Charity office today.  However the leaving of the said office didn't go quite as successfully, with me confidently walking face first into the entrance doors proving a rather spectacular conclusion to the day.  Sadly it seemed to have escaped my tiny and distracted mind that the first set of doors when leaving the office are, in fact, not automatic. 

Though in the face of such adversity I think I recovered admirably, as fortunately my nose took the brunt of it and it was only witnessed by two alarmed vistors and a random woman dropping off flyers for reception.  On finally reaching my car, having triumphantly negiotiated all remaining portals,  I was required to spend several minutes checking the nasal situation but I am pleased to say there doesn't appear to be any permanent damage.

So now, sustained by a healing cup of coffee, I'm able to update on the seeds, or rather seedlings, that are flourishing on my windowsill.

The cucumbers were first to come through, with a massive five out of six germinating nicely.  Nearly all the tomatoes have also come through with five out of five, with the only exception being the Blondkopfchen (white cherry variety) which have stubbornly refused to budge.  So it will be seven varieties of tomato this year I think, the Blondkopfchen seeds were a couple of years old so perhaps they've just run out of energy or got a bit damp.  Then the aubergines, well aubergine, as only one of the four have germinated.  That means a second sowing this weekend to make up the numbers.  The chillies are still holding back but I noticed a couple coming through this morning, the jury's still out on them.  Finally the celeriac, which are showing no signs of life but having never grown these before, I'm just hoping they're late developers....

Once your seeds start to sprout make sure you remove the clear cover you have over them.  High humity is nectar to seeds but will make your little seedlings rot and make sure you keep the compost they're in nice and damp by checking them daily and watering a little when needed.  If you have got them on a radiator to germinate, then take them off now and the high heat is no longer needed and they'll dry out quicker.  Watch them grow until you can see roots starting to come out of the hole in the bottom of the cell, then it's time to pot them on...

The new addition to the windowsill is the tray of seed potatoes.  Potatoes are a fabulous crop to grow as harvesting them is like digging for buried treasure.  I never cease to be excited when, scrabbling through the dark and earthy compost, I find these little nuggets of gorgeousness resting patiently.  I'm not sure I can do their description justice, they're just so....new.  The grow so wonderfully with very little effort and they come in so many colours and shapes with a variety of different uses.  You can grow them in bags, pots, tubs or in the ground which makes them perfect for every type of garden.

You start off with seed potatoes.  These are just rather wrinkly looking potatoes, probably with a few sprouts on them.  I get mine from JBA Seed Potatoes which do a staggering variety of seed potatoes of the three potato types, these are:

First Earlies - plant around the end of March and they can be harvested around June/July.
Second Earlies - plant mid to late April to be harvested around mid August
Main Crop - plant late March to mid April for harvesting mid August all the way to October.

You will also need to choose your variety based on what you're going to be using them for i.e. floury for mashing or waxy for salads, although many are good all-rounders.

JBA Seed Potatoes are also great with planting advice and timings etc, even if you don't get you seeds from there (they will have probably sold out of the most popular varieties by now) it helps to give you an idea of how to grow them.

I only ever grow First and Second Earlies because I grow in potato bags so don't grow a massive crop and because Main Crop are more likely to get the dreaded blight around August and September.  I can't be doing with that so I just grow the ones that I can harvest mid to late August so I have a greater chance of avoiding blight all together.  This is particularly because I grow tomatoes and aubergines as well, in reasonably close proximity, and so I don't want to risk blight spores spreading around the three. 

You can easily get seed potatoes from your local garden centre though, plus the bags to grow them in if you want to take that route.  You'll need only four or five seed potatoes per 50 litre bag, plus I have a couple of 40 litre ones as well and those take three or four seeds.  I've never grown them in the ground due to space so I can't help here but there are a whole variety of good veg books that you can get or, as I do, just Google it.  Gardener's World is invaluable to me in most cases, so their Growing Potatoes Guide should help.

This year I'm sticking to two varieties, both of them Second Earlies:

Blue Kestrel - I tend to grow the Kestrel variety every year as it's a fantastic all-rounder, so it can be fried, baked, roasted, mashed and boiled.  It has a superb taste and good disease resistance, plus it doesn't seem to suffer to badly as cuisine for slugs.  The Blue Kestrel is a relation with all these admirable attributes but with a lovely purple-ish tinge, plus it's a bit more floury which appeals for roasting purposes.
Salad Blue - I grew this for the first time last year, following which I was totally in love.  It's a gorgeous deep purple colour all the way through when harvested, when cooked it turns a delicate blue.  It's a waxy, or salad, potato and looks brilliant when added to the said potato salad.

You will notice I like to go for unusual colours but many of these don't survive the cooking process, frankly they're just a lot more interesting to grow.  I do grow "regular" potatoes though, such as the Kestrel, and some previous varieties I've known and loved are:

Charlotte - the well-known waxy (salad) potato but a million times tastier than the ones in the shops.
Heather - a scrummy lilac-skinned variety, will definitely grow again but my last crop was a bit small.
Red King Edward - actually a Main Crop but I grew it as a Second Early, beautiful red-skin with creamy white flesh.

Once you've got your seeds you need to "chit" them.  This is where the windowsill comes in.  You need to lie them in a tray (old egg boxes are also good) and put them in a light but cool place.  Greenhouse, conservatory or windowsills work well.  If you do go for the greenhouse please make sure the door is closed as you don't want frost destroying the lot. 

I've popped mine in one of the clear, plastic covers I've just taken off my tomato seedlings and put it on the windowsill in my parents' study, turning the radiator off.  I've run out of room on my primary windowsill and I've afraid I've just had to spread further afield, as I do every year.  By April every available windowsill has some variety of fruit or veg growing on it, the downside of not having a decent greenhouse.  That's it.  Just leave them there to produce lots of lovely sprouts from their eyes until it's time to plant them out....

Back in the garden

Technically you're supposed to tend to your garden over Winter, raking leaves and cleaning up, that sort of thing.  I, on the other hand, don't venture out there until sowing time arrives again, which this year is today.  This probably makes me lazy.  Maybe my (currently my parents') garden isn't as good as other, more conscientious, people's gardens but to be honest I don't like messing around in the bitter cold and wet and my garden seems fine to me.  I have better things to do with my time in Winter, not to mention warmer places to be, and so the garden sleeps, sorely neglected, until I return in the Spring.

February is the time I sow my tomatoes, aubergines, cucumbers, chillies and, this year, celeriac.  March is also fine I think but I like to give the top four a good head-start as I live in the wilds of Sheffield where the temperatures don't get as high as down-South and so the tomatoes in particular benefit from a little extra time to ripen before blight comes in around September.

I believe that parsnips normally go in around February time but, as they are planted in situ, I like to put them in around mid-March when it's all warmed up a bit more.

Tomatoes, aubergines, cucumbers and chillies all need to be sown in trays and germinated in the house, in my opinion.  They need a good warm temperature to germinate so on the window sills in the best place for them, unless you're fortunate enough to have a heated greenhouse, which I don't, so from February onwards the windows in the Jones house are covered in black garden trays.

The seeds of the aforementioned crops are big enough (just) to handle and so I prefer to sow them in cell trays.  With smaller seeds I just fill a black tray (with holes in the bottom) with compost and sprinkle them over.  Cell trays mean I can leave the seedlings in there a little bit longer before potting them on (putting them in bigger pots) and they are easier to get out and you can push compost, roots and seedlings out all in one go and pop in the new pot.

Cell trays have holes in the bottom, so they need to go in another tray so when you water them the water doesn't run all over your window sills.  They also need to be covered to encourage warmth and humitity, I buy clear plastic covers that fit the base trays but you can use cling film.  Cling film is a little annoying though so I tend to just buy the covers.

I don't use seed compost.  I use bog standard multi-purpose for everything (except ericacious plants).  Nor do I sift it into the cells, which means I do end up with lumps but I just squish the worst ones out.  Nor do I add grit or that stuff like grit which I can't remember the name of, just multi-purpose compost.  My seeds always germinate, sometimes not all but I sow enough to allow some not to make it.  Vermiculite!  It's called vermiculite.  I don't see the point of buying lots of additional stuff, if it works for you then use it.

I fill all the cells with compost, label each row with what you're planting, make a hole in the middle of the cell with a pencil (the depth required is usually specified on the seed packet), pop in the seed, cover over with compost and water.  Put in the drip tray, cover with the clear lid and put on your window sill. 

Don't over water, you're trying to dampen the compost not soak it and you certainly don't want your seeds sitting in water so pour any out of the tray if they are doing.  Use warm water for the aubergines and cucumbers.

I tend to grow more seeds that I need as I often pass on plants to friends, with Sarah and Isla being the recipients this year, or some just don't germinate.  Please compost any excess baby plants or give them away.  There was the year I couldn't bear to compost healthy tomato plants and ended up with a garden full of grow-bags and 40 tomato plants.  Needless to say I when to Cornwall for a week and when I came back I had a garden full of squishy blight-ridden tomato plants - not a nice clean-up job.  Keep to the number of plants you plan for and don't over-fill your beds of pots.  One big healthy plant is better than two small sickly ones.

Tomatoes

I adore growing tomatoes, which is odd as I hate the taste of them.  I only eat them cooked, hence why I grow some good cookers.  The smell of tomato plants is wonderful though and when you pick the fruits your fingers get stained yellow and smell like gardens.  I grow all mine outside, even in Sheffield, but they are all in terracotta pots on the patio (for direct sun all day).

I'm reliably informed that shop-bought tomatoes aren't a patch on home-grown ones so, as you can grow them in a window box if you want to (with the right variety), you really should try it.  They're not too high maintainence, they just need:

1. Sun - grow in the sunniest part of your garden;
2. Water - not lots actually but they must be watered regularly and not allowed to dry out, although I've done this and they've survived;
3. Tomato food - I buy the biggest size of tomato feed I can find at the garden centre and use it all through the year.  You should use it on aubergines and chillies too, oh and on daffodils once they've died back, it helps them beef-up for next year.

I grow eight varieties of tomatoes.  My cell trays are 5x8 cells so I sow five or each of the eight varieties.  Labelling each row with the variety and the sowing date.  The varieties I'm growing are:

Sungold - I grow this every year.  Sweet, golden orange cherry tomato.  Massive favourite with my family.
Black Cherry - my second year of this one, black/red cherry tomato.
Tasty Evergreen - a new one for me, regular-sized green tomato.
Yellow Brandywine - a heritage variety which I've never grown before.  Yellow beef variety.
San Marzano - coming back to this after a year off, it's an Italian red plum and a good cooker.
Snowberry - heritage again and its first time in the Jones garden.  White cherry tomato.
Blondkopfchen - chose to grow it because of the name.  Another white cherry.
Gardener's Delight - back again due to it's success last year.  Red cherry tomato.

I grow a lot of cherry varieties as they produce bigger and quicker crops.

Aubergines

Need to be grown permanently in a greenhouse.  I grow three plants in a grow-bag covered with a grow-bag greenhouse (plastic).  They need and love lots and lots of sun.  They are the same family as tomatoes, nightshade so technically (as with potatoes incidentally) shouldn't be grown near other nightshades - spreads blight.  As I grow them in a sealed greenhouse I don't bother about that.

They a beautiful plants.  They have deep purple flowers with a bright yellow centre, well my variety do.  I grow one variety - I sow six seeds for three plants as they are a bitch to germinate.  Put them on a radiator window sill if you can as they need a lot of heat to germinate in my experience and only water them with warmish water never cold water.  The variety I grow is Ophelia.  Mainly because I loved the name but also because they are mini aubergines (you pick them about the size of golf balls) and so are better in grow-bags than their larger siblings.

Cucumbers

Different family to aubergines but I grow them the same.  Three plants in a grow bag in a grow-bag greenhouse.  They need sun too but not as much as aubergines.  I grew them in the same green house last year but the heat the aubergine thrived in quickly sickened the cucumber.  It got mildew and shrivelled to nothing, although it still produced cucumbers, my kind of plant.  I grow a variety called Minature White which, as the name suggests, is small and white in colour.  Perfect for salads and eating as you potter round the garden.  It will need a structure to grow up as it's a climber but a bamboo cane affair does fine. 

Chillies

I love chillies how I love tomatoes.  I love the different fruit colours and, sadly missing with tomatoes, I love the different colours of foliage.  These need to be grown in a greenhouse for the heat, I grown mind in a plastic one on the patio for maximum sun.  They need plenty of water and benefit from tomato feed too.

I've sown three of the four varieties today (the Padron variety can wait until March):

Lemon Drop - beautiful purple green foliage with yellow fruits (turning red), nice and hot but not tongue incinerating.
Cayenne - a long red medium heat staple that I grow each year.
Black Pearl - okay I admit I only bought this because it reminded me of Pirates of the Caribbean but the idea of a black chilli is just too exciting to pass up.  Tried to sow last year with no success so I'm having a second attempt this year.

Celeriac

Not a lot to say about this really as I've never grown celeriac before.  After a bit of internet research and book-reading I've gone with a variety called Prinz.  I love to eat celeriac and so I figured I'd probably love to grow it.  I've got a cell tray that's 4x5 cells so I've just filled it with seeds (tiny buggers, would normally have sprinkle-sown them but I need them in cells so I can transfer easily).  I can fit 10 plants in one bed so 20 seeds seems a good starting ratio, I can always give some away.

Seed suppliers - all the seed varieties I've mentioned are bought from Plants of Distinction or Nicky's Nursery.  See Useful Suppliers for details.  You can get most of them from other places though, these are just where I buy them from.

Pre-dawn pancakes

Good lord it's early.  My brain, rather helpfully, roused me from slumber around 5am and then stubbornly refused to drift off again.  Fortunately I cope well as an early bird and so have hauled myself downstairs to start the day. 

There is a distinct lack of food in the house at the moment, bar ingredients for a variety of puddings for our family "Christmas" in Buxton at the weekend.  I draw the line at white chocolate for breakfast but thanks to the punctuality of the blessed milkman I have had an extremely satisfactory breakfast of blueberry pancakes (USA style) with maple syrup.  I would have added some crispy streaky bacon to that but couldn't really be bothered to spend the time getting it properly crispy, it was 6am after all.  I would like to make it clear that my heart lies with proper pancakes, those being the silky crepe affairs we all know well, but sometimes we have to take a lead from over the pond.  Plus it means I can add blueberries, so that surely counts as one of my five a day.

The recipe I use is from Jamie Oliver's book 'Happy Days with the Naked Chef' but there are probably a whole variety of them very similar.

USA style blueberry pancakes

Serves four I think, can't remember, buy the book.

115g plain flour
1 heaped teaspoon baking powder
3 large eggs
140ml milk
a pinch of sea salt
a handful of blueberries

two medium mixing bowls
an electric hand whisk (or a hand whisk if that's all you have)


Separate the eggs, putting the yolks in one bowl and the whites in the other.  If you struggle with this (I often do), wash your hands well first, then crack the eggs into your hands and gently move the yolk between your hands until the white has come away.  Do this over one of the mixing bowls, obviously. 

Put the flour, baking powder and milk in the bowl with the egg yolks and put the pinch of salt in with the egg whites.  Whisk the egg whites with the electric whisk until they form stiff peaks (hold the bowl upside down and they won't budge, if they start to slide, whisk a bit more).  Using the same whisk, mix the egg yolks, flour, baking powder and milk in the other bowl to form a thickish batter.  Mix each bowl in this order, don't do the yolks first (unless you want to wash the whisk between each whisking) as you'll never get the whites to form peaks with bits of batter in there, which they must do as you need the air they hold for light, fluffy pancake goodness.  When whisking egg whites, everything they touch must always be scrupulously clean.  It's the law.

Fold the egg whites into the egg yolk batter.  Use a metal spoon, only a metal spoon, anything else will knock the air out.  As will mixing it.  Put a non-stick (essential, you won't be using oil so if not non-stick you'll get in a bit of a mess) frying pan on the hob on a high heat.  After 5 minutes put spoonfuls of the batter, well-spaced, in the pan.  I do mine about 10cm in diameter but it's up to you.  Turn the heat down to medium.  Fry until golden brown, scatter blueberries on the uncooked (upward-facing) side, wait for 20 seconds then flip.  Continue to fry until golden on both sides and cooked through.

Done.  Serve with lots of maple syrup.  Not golden syrup.  Maple syrup.  Again, the law.

You can put lots of different fruits in the pancakes instead of blueberries - raspberries, blackberries, pear, sweetcorn (not a fruit, I know) or currants.  You just need to make sure they will cook in the same time as the pancakes, so pear, for example, should be grated first.

Quick and easy chocolate fix

Crikey I'm cracking on with this blog now, I have a fairly addictive personality and so I think I'm becoming a little obsessive about it all.  I'm used to thinking about gastronomy and gardening pretty much constantly but now I get to write it all down too, fabulous.

Anyway, have got the Recipes page up now, as I keep shoving in recipes here and there I thought it might be a good way of keeping track of them all a) so I don't repeat myself and b) so they're easier to find for those reading. 

Also up is the Useful Suppliers page, where I'm in the process of putting all the places I get all the things I need.  I'm hoping, with help from people who read the blog, to make it into a sort of go-to place to good suppliers of food, drink, plants, seeds etc.  I'm working on making it a bit more international as I know that most of them are UK-based, not great for those of you in the US and Europe.  The food area might be difficult for those of you in the US, as I know the majority of your food is based around corn syrup, but I've had some amazing meals in a variety of states so you must be hiding magnificent food and drink suppliers somewhere, we shall perservere...

As the title of this post suggests, last night, post-Salmon & Quinoa Salad, a situation presented itself (after my father had departed to sing in his choir) in that it became apparent that my mother and I provided the perfect number for Microwave Chocolate Pudding, that number being two.

Microwave Chocolate Pudding originally came from Good Housekeeping magazine but I have altered it slightly to suit my tastes and to reduce the fat content slightly, one has to consider one's waistline in these situations.  It's not a delicate creature, being basically a chocolate sponge with sauce but it's wonderfully quick and easy to make, so a brilliant last-minute pudding plus most people would have the ingredients in the cupboard and it involves no messing about with weighing scales.

Microwave Chocolate Pudding

Serves two.

4 tbsps golden syrup
3 tbsps cocoa powder (Green & Blacks is what I use, I tried own-brand and it wasn't nearly as good)
6 tbsps self-raising flour
2 ½ tbsps caster sugar (golden if possible)
1 medium egg
1 tbsp sunflower oil (or groundnut oil, something mild definitely not olive oil)
2 tbsps milk

two microwave-safe mugs
a medium mixing bowl
a hand whisk


Put one tablespoon of the cocoa powder in each of the mugs and the third tablespoon in the mixing bowl.  Put one tablespoon of golden syrup in each of the mugs, on top of the cocoa.  Stir until the cocoa and syrup until they form a chocolatey paste, trying not to get it up the sides of the mug too much.  You will stir and stir and just when you think it'll never combine it will start to stick to the sides and mix to form the perfect paste.

Add all the other ingredients to the mixing bowl with the cocoa powder in and whisk everything together well, making sure to get rid of any lumps.  If it's a bit on the thick side (it should be fairly liquid for a pudding mix) add a splash more milk.  Divide the pudding mixture evenly between the two mugs, pouring on top of the cocoa/syrup paste whilst trying not to get it on the sides of the mug too much.

Microwave each mug on full power (800w) for 1 minutes 20 seconds (if the top of the puddings still looks a bit raw then microwave for another 20 seconds).  Leave them for 20 seconds then turn out into a bowl, making sure to get all the chocolatey syrup out of the bottom of the mug.  Serve with lots of cream or vanilla ice cream but definitely not, in a moment of weight-watching madness, serve with creme fraiche or yoghurt.

As an alternative, after mixing the pudding ingredients together well you can add a handful of chopped up white chocolate to the mix, stir in then continue to follow the recipe as above.  I never have white chocolate in the cupboard so I rarely do this but it's an option.

Pusscats and pasta

Following a super night at Ethel's leaving do last night (SHC on fine form and ended up in what can only be described as a lock-in at a Chinese restaurant) I had retired to my bed around lunchtime to catch up on a bit of sleep.  I have little to no stamina for late nights, I'm an early bird.  I was accompanied, as is the norm, by Pickle and Tibby ("the girls") who can sense imminent snoozing from the furthest reaches of our garden, nay possibly the end of the street. 

Sleeping with Pickle and Tibby is a lovely, if rather restrictive, affair.  As they have got older, they both refuse to sleep within a certain radius of each other, therefore they are each required to take opposite sides of my bed.  This means I am left to slide myself carefully into "No Man's Land" between them.  It's a delicate manoeuvre, which if done incorrectly will result in one of the other parties removing themselves from the bed in disgust.  I can't deny I sometimes find this quite a relief and have been know on occasions to take to the proceedings with a somewhat Devil-may-care attitude in the hope of a little extra leg room. 

Sadly, the scorned party is usually Tibby as Pickle burgeoning weight gives her more anchorage.  Tibby, as you will see from the photograph, has a very judgmental and expressive face (incidentally the photograph was taken upon being woken up by Tibby this afternoon, she favours the Persistent Paw in the Face method of rousing her mistress).  The grubby white is a perfect backdrop for her favourite look of painful confusion.  In a post-eviction fury she will huddle quietly in the coldest corner of the room looking hurt and bewildered as to what she could have done to proke such an assault against her.  Do I love Pickle more?  What has she done to receive such treatment?  I mustn't worry, she will be fine here in this freezing, barren area of the bedroom, look, if she cuddles herself up tightly it's as if her mummy does really love her......  Needless to say she wins.  I call her encouragingly for about an hour, extolling the virtues of sleeping in her previous position, after which I start to doze guiltily.  As sleep is about to take me in it's warm embrace, she hurtles across me, trampling over my face and head to her water bowl on the bedside table.  She drinks noisily for a bit then returns to her position on the bed ("I'm sure I remember this being bigger?") and I move aside to accomodate her.  Inevitably, I wake a 3am with a dead leg and a tingling right buttock. 

Back to today.  I should be looking at getting my tomato seeds sowed but the reminants of snow outside makes that feel a little comical, plus I don't really have the drive for gardening at the moment.  I'm a terribly lazy individual and so will probably be forced into action in the near future, I won't worry about it for now.

I have been asked for, and I quote, "Recipes for Idiots".  I'm not really sure how to respond to this request as I fear I would be patronising.  To be honest I think it doesn't really matter what you make, or how complicated it is, as long as the ingredients are good.  With good ingredients you need to do less to them to make the dish taste fantastic.  Sadly, in the UK, this normally means paying more for your shopping.  However, you can always grow your own.  It's easier and easier now and I love doing it, growing something from seed is the most amazing buzz, particularly potatoes.  My first potato harvest made me cry.  I was that happy.  True I was on quite heavy medication at the time but still.....

My offering as an example of an easy, simple recipe which relies on good ingredients is Garlic & Chilli Linguine.  There are loads of recipes for this on the web and in cookbooks, this is my version.  It's a long recipe written down as, naturally, I have an opinion about everything but it's a piss-easy recipe.

Garlic & Chilli Linguine

Serves two people.

a bottle of extra virgin olive oil (as good as you can afford to get)

a bulb of garlic (to use probably four cloves)

one or two red chillies

one lemon

a packet of linguine (I use De Cecco in it's distinctive blue and yellow packet, nice rough texture which holds sauces well)

sea salt flakes

freshly ground  black pepper (never, I repeat never, use the pre-ground stuff go thee and buy yourself a pepper grinder)

Pour some olive oil into a high-sided frying pan, I think they're called saute pans.  I don't know how much in tablespoons but I basically pour into the pan whilst counting to four - one elephant, two elephant etc.   You need a big pan of boiling water and I mean a big pan and I mean boiling, a proper "rolling" boil with big bubbles and everything.  Put a tablespoon of sea saltt flakes in, if not more, I probably do.  Pasta needs oodles of salty boiling water to cook well - the more pasta, the bigger the pan, the more water and the more salt.  The amount of pasta is up to you, depends how hungry the two of you are.  I go by this rule - if you hold the strands of linguine together so the cross-section is circular, look down at the tops of the strands and the circumference should be that of a one pence piece.  Do I mean circumference?  I hope that makes sense, I'm not sure how else to describe it.  Anyway, that's enough for one person (in our house anyway) and so multiply at your leisure. 

Whack the linguine in the boiling water pushing it slowly until it's all covered by the water.  Bring back to the boil and stir well to seperate the strands.  Boil for as long as it says on the packet, about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to keeps the strands apart.  Whilst this is happening you can do the sauce as the sauce will be done around the time the pasta is, if the pasta's done first, drain and set it to one side as the sauce won't be long.  Don't leave it in the water it will continue cooking.  Pasta should be al dente so it should have a bit of a bite to it, there should be resistance not crunch.

Now you need to chop the garlic and chillies, quantities of which depend on the fatness of the cloves and the heat of the chillies.  I buy regular supermarket garlic, they are all pretty much the same, and use four cloves, peeled and finely chopped. 

Note: If the cloves are particularly thin, use a bit extra, if you think "Good lord that's a fat clove of garlic" use a bit less.  Actually, I think only I would think "God lord that's a fat clove of garlic" but you get my point.  To quickly peel the garlic, chop the bottom off and place the flat of your knife blade on top of the clove, put your hand on top and push down until you feel the clove burst.  This splits the clove and means you can pull the skin off quickly, usually in one bit.

The red chillies that most supermarkets sell, sometimes with their equivalent in green, are probably medium in heat and I would use two of them.  Use one if you aren't sure, you can always add another one if it lacks a kick.  You don't want too much heat, just a kick, so you can taste the chilli and the garlic.  I grow cayenne (hot) chillies amongst my peppers and I use two of those, halved with the membrane and seeds scraped out, then sliced into little crescents.   

Note: I try to wear latex gloves (like doctors wear, you can get them from Homebase etc in the decorating section cheaper than elsewhere and in bulk) as the chilli heat tends to linger on hands and hurts like hell in the eyes.  The heat is the membrane, the pale stuff that holds the seeds, so if you want to reduce the hear scrape off as much as possible. 

If you hate chopping and/or are feeling lazy, invest in one of those hand blenders that come with a little bowl attachment, mine was a present actually so can't think of the name but I think it's this one - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-HR1363-Blender-Chopper-Accessory/dp/B000LYSSWW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328979483&sr=8-1 - in which case you can just put the peeled cloves of garlic and deseeded chilli halves in there and whizz them up.  Saves ages of dull chopping.

Heat the oil until, well, hot and then turn the heat down to medium or lowish.  Add the chilli and garlic and fry gently, stirring it about for two or three minutes until both are soft.  Dip you finger in to taste, if it needs another chilli now's the time to add it.  Take the pan off the heat, off it not just turning the heat off, and grate the lemon zest into the pan, squeeze the lemon and add the juice to the pan. 

Once the linguine's done (remember to test a bit for al dente), drain it, don't shake it too much you want to retain a bit of the cooking water about the linguine, and pour the pasta into the sauce.  Always add the pasta to the sauce, for all pasta dishes, always add the pasta to the sauce not the other way round.  Season with a good pinch of sea salt and pepper, then mix well. 

Serve with a crunchy green salad (little gem or cos lettuce maybe) and a balsamic vinegar dressing (3 parts extra virgin olive oil, 1 part balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper all shaken up in a jam jar).

As an alternative version, add a couple of handfuls of raw tiger prawns (or as big as you can get, not the little ones though, just don't add any in that case) to the frying of the garlic and chilli (raw if possible, look in the frozen section where they're cheaper, if you can only get cooked ones then put them in once the pan is off the heat and stir them in to warm through.  Overcooked prawns are nasty and chewy.  Then add a bag of rocket once the pasta's in and stir it through.  The prawns work wonderfully with the garlic and chilli plus the rocket adds to the lemoniness and provides a nice fresh edge.

Comfort food

Today has been an IT nightmare in the Sheffield Hospitals Charity office.  I should mention at this point that all names have been changed to protect the innocent, if I get permission to mention them I shall do away with such precautions.  One of our fundraisers, let's called her Jennifer, valiantly battled with poor formatting and a sickly proxy server to get the legacy campaign details all up on the website. I, on the other hand, had rather a desperate conversation with the IT Helpdesk before deciding to call it a day. 

As a result I'm feeling the need for good comfort food.  Sadly, I remembered a chocolate Easter Maltesers animal (I think it was a rabbit but there was definitely an element of an alarmed beagle) I'd forgotten about in my bag so I inhaled that on my way home.  Must remember not to leave seasonal chocolate products anywhere about my person, it inevitably leads to such disappointing incidents.  Anyway, comfort food.  Apple & Cinnamon Crumble is an obvious choice, with large amounts of custard, but my favourite comfort food is Rice Pudding. 

Also, I have been alerted to the fact that marmalade (see previous post) may be a little too time-consuming and, dare I say it, advanced for some of my friends....two of my friends....let's call them Jennifer and Susan....I would disagree, however, I see their point but shall refrain from giving examples, especially the one about the bread-maker with no paddle.  Hopefully the following is a little more their (and others) thing and I shall endevour to get the Banana & Chocolate Loaf recipe up in the next post, Susan mentioned fruit loaf so hopefully that's close enough.

Back to the rice pudding.  The basis of this recipe comes from Nigel Slater I think, fairly certain, but I change the flavours quite regularly depending on the season.  Vanilla is the staple, with cinnamon being the one I love around Christmas and I make a lemon verbena version all through the summer. 

As a quick aside, I grow lemon verbena in a pot in the garden, fantastic herb and impossible to get in the shops - such a massive oversight as it has an amazing lemony aroma, not really a taste as such, more a fragrance in your mouth.  You can get a plant online very easily, just Google it and something will come up.  They grow beautifully in a pot but need sun for as much as the day as possible, I grow mine on the patio as that gets sun nearly all day in the summer.  I'm afraid the slightest hint of frost or low temperatures causes them to sulk and inevitable die, so around November I wrap mine up in garden fleece and pop it in the pop-up greenhouse.  Please try it, it's such a gorgeous little creature and can be used in lots of recipes, normally dairy-based I just realised, like panna cotta.

Back to the Rice Pudding, the recipe below is for the basic vanilla version but definitely experiment with flavours:

Rice Pudding

Serves two regular people or one Clare.  Multiply as needed, I usually times all ingredients (bar the vanilla and butter, that stays the same) by three.

1 pint full-cream milk (I use semi-skimmed with no problems)
50g short-grain pudding rice (also works with risotto rice if circumstances require)
2tbsps caster sugar (the unrefined, golden stuff if possible please)
a knob of butter (around 25g but I usually use less, one has to consider the waistline)
a vanilla pod (or other flavours as desired, maybe a cinnamon stick, couple of sprigs of lemon verbena....)


Pre-heat the oven to 180◦c. 

Put the milk in a pan and add the sugar.  Cut the vanilla pod in half (slide knife down the middle horizontally) and then run a knife down each side to scrape out the little black seeds.  Pop the seeds and whole pod into the milk and bring it to the boil.  You want to bring it just to the boil, not actually boil it, so keep an eye on in as milk goes from beautifully self-contained to burnt all over your hob in seconds.  It's about the right temperature when it's just a bit too hot to comfortably dip your finger in it - not terribly hygenic advice that, ummm make sure your hands are clean....

You'll need an oven-proof dish that will comfortably hold all the milk in the pan (obviously depends how many you're cooking for).  Put the rice and butter in the said dish and pour the hot milk over the top, stir it a bit then stick it in the oven.

Timings depend on how much you're cooking and how you like it.  I am basing the following on the fact that you like it like I like - thick and creamy but still gently runny.  Start with half an hour in the oven then check it, the rice will be sticking together and there will be a skin on top, stir it gently to avoid slopping milk everywhere but to help break the rice up a bit.  After another half an hour do the same again.  You will notice that the milk is starting to thicken and the rice isn't sticking in great clumps as much, from then on check it every 15 minutes or so.  My version (so three times this recipe i.e. 3 pints of milk etc) takes around an hour and half but I think an hour is probably sufficient for this recipe.  Please be careful not to overcook as you'll end up with a great wodge of milky rice.  I find it difficult to tell without stirring it each time I check it but if you want a skin that's not possible, personally I'd sacrifice the skin rather than lose the whole lot to disappointing wodginess...

So the skin. Rice puddings form a skin as they cook.  I stir the skin in as I can't bear it, if you love the skin (I hear many do) then you need to time it that you give can give it a good stir in the thickened-milk stage and still have time to leave it for 20 minutes or so for the skin to form.  I also recommend using 25g (or multiples thereof) of butter in the recipe, it seems to help the skin to form.  As I refuse to nuture any form of skin on my rice pudding I'm not much help here but I'm sure others can assist.

Once you've reached the appropriate texture remove it from the oven and allow to cool.  Please bear in mind that it will continue to thicken as it cools so you want to keep it sufficiently runny whilst in the oven.  I stir mine to combine everything but if you're keeping the skin you'll want to avoid that. 

Once cooled serve with a good strawberry jam or, better still, on it's own.  Marmalade is nice with the cinnamon version, though probably an aquired taste.