Winter catch-up!

By the end of October our garden beds were looking good, full of pak choi, turnips, kale, radishes, winter lettuces, perpetual spinach, kai lan, lamb's lettuce, purple sprouting broccoli and carrots, not to mention self-seeded claytonia everywhere.

The greenhouse was full of pots of rocket, mustard, pak choi, lettuce and spring cabbages.

The saffron came up but didn't flower, which was disappointing. I've been feeding it all winter to try to build it up for next year. I'm not sure whether it's supposed to be this floppy...

On the plot, we had a few leeks doing well, and our over-winter onions and garlic got off to a great start. We even managed to pick a couple of big bags of chickweed for the dinner table, and turned them into a creamy green sauce to serve with rostis and poached eggs with lots of parmesan.

In November, I was given a mushroom growing kit for my birthday, and proceeded to grow lots of lovely pearl oyster mushrooms. The kit, from Fungi Futures, is easy to grow indoors and produces three flushes of mushrooms over a couple of months.

Good, huh? Growing mushrooms like this is fun and a great experience, and it's amazing to watch how fast they grow! This kit makes a great gift, but it's a rather expensive way to get your mushrooms and there must be more cost-effective alternatives to grow them long term... I've always been a bit put-off by 'gourmet' mushrooms as I find some varieties rather rubbery and weird, but now I can safely say I like oyster mushrooms so maybe I'll see what I can do about growing some more...

In December I discovered this wonderful recipe for Seville orange cheesecake - the best orange cheesecake you're ever likely to taste and possibly the bestest ever cheesecake ever. And, being someone who doesn't like traditional fruity spicy Christmas desserts, I made this equally awesome choc-and-nut Christmas pudding for the big day. The recipe is adapted from a Delicious Magazine recipe, but after a trial run I decided there was plenty of room for improvement, so here's my version.

Choc-and-nut Christmas Pudding

• Grease a 1.5 litre pudding basin and dust with cocoa powder to prevent sticking.
• Beat together 175g unsalted butter (at room temp), 100g caster sugar and 60g soft brown sugar until light and fluffy.
• Beat three medium eggs into the mix, a little at a time.
• Stir in then sift in 100g plain flour, 45g cocoa powder, 2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda and fold in thoroughly.
• Fold in 50g chopped hazelnuts and 50g ground almonds, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 2 tsp mixed spice, 75ml full-fat milk, the zest of one large orange, and 150g chopped dark chocolate (or dark chocolate chips).
• Pour into the pudding basin and seal with greaseproof paper, foil and string - Lesley Waters shows how here. Then put the pudding basin in a large pan with a lid, add enough hot water to come halfway up the sides of the basin, cover, and simmer for two hours. Make sure the pan doesn't dry out.
• For the sauce, place 125g dark chocolate (broken up) in a jug with 2 tbsp golden syrup and a good splash of brandy. Heat 250ml double cream and 150ml full-fat milk in a pan until almost boiling, then pour over the chocolate and stir until it makes a smooth, glossy sauce. (If it doesn't come together, transfer to a bain marie and keep stirring, or microwave it for a few seconds at a time, stirring in between, until it does.)
• Unwrap the pudding, run a knife carefully round the edge, and turn it out onto a serving plate. Dust with icing sugar or add other decoration as desired, and serve hot with the chocolate sauce.

It's dense and crumbly and rich, just like a Christmas pud should be, and full of chocolatey goodness with lots of nutty crunch and just a touch of spice to keep things festive. It's best served hot, and don't forget the brandy and chocolate sauce!

In January, during a mild spell, we harvested our Jerusalem artichokes. The crop was smaller than I was expecting - I don't know if they didn't do very well (I didn't notice them flower) or if we just missed them in the heavy clay soil! I read somewhere that they were good for breaking up heavy soils but they were extremely hard to dig and even harder to find, caked in clay! I'll soon find out how many we missed when those we left behind start growing in spring...

I picked a few more bits and pieces from the garden, and was delighted to find I could put a whole meal together with homegrown ingredients - in January!

I slow-roasted some pork shoulder with herbs and red wine til it was fall-apart tender, and served it up with pureed Jerusalem artichokes, fresh patio-grown new potatoes, braised turnips and baby onions (stored from summer), and garlicky kale and chard. It was a fab meal and so satisfying to be able to do that in January, even if it was just the once! The Jerusalem artichokes were a new one on us and we were both very pleasantly surprised by their sweetness and flavour. I do hope we get more next year!

I've had three chilli plants overwintering on my windowsill, all full of fruit which I seem to use up terribly slowly (I'm too used to just chucking some powder in), so I picked them all, strung thread through their stalks and hung them up to dry.

We're in February now and the garden's looking a bit sorry for itself, having spent several weeks under snow recently. My remaining radishes are rotten, the pak choi is bolting (already??), and the outdoor winter lettuces have vanished. The carrots are doing about as well as they always do for me - I might as well give up sowing carrots altogether! The greenhouse lettuces are doing really well, but a late family of caterpillars ate most of the rocket and the rest has now bolted. The broccoli is not really big enough in its containers - I'm getting the feeling it really needs to go in open ground.

I've had quite a few pickings from my winter garden - kale has probably fed me most, and the Jerusalem artichokes and winter potatoes (fleeced on the patio) were definitely worthwhile. There are still quite a few turnips, winter lettuces, lamb's lettuce and pak choi to be eaten, claytonia as always, and some very small spring cabbages which I hope will reach a useful size as spring comes on. The perpetual spinach and chard are just starting to get going again and signs of new growth are everywhere. Hurrah!

And of course, the sowing has begun for the new season, with leeks in pots outside, and slow-growing chillies, peppers and aubergines on the windowsill. I started them early this month - later than last year, as they got a bit much to cope with before planting out, but still early enough, I hope, to give them a decent head start and an earlier crop.

Writing this, I've just remembered I started my first early potatoes about this time last year, and this year I haven't even bought my seed potatoes yet! I must get a move on! The plastic greenhouse is on its last legs, poor thing, and needs replacing, and I must find a pot for the plum tree I've ordered too. I haven't even thought about broad beans yet and I dread to think what the allotment is looking like right now! February 21st? It's practically March!

Autumn Vegetable Tagine

While I don't really want this to turn into a food blog, there's nothing like a great recipe to pull me out of blogging apathy and get me posting again, and this one, which began as a half-hearted attempt to use up some aging veg from the fridge while Eddie was working late last night and ended up one of the tastiest dishes I've cooked all year, is a cracker.

The onions and garlic are in and drying, the courgette plants are fruiting their last, and, even though my own crop failed completely, the shops are full of gorgeous pumpkins. (I find it so strange how they sell 'carving pumpkins' cheaper than the pumpkins in the vegetable aisle, don't you? They're just as good to eat! I love how you can get so many meals out of a £1.50 pumpkin!) With all these plus sweet potatoes and dried fruit, this Moroccan-influenced dish is absolutely seasonal, it's awesomely healthy, it's quick and easy to make, and the flavours... the flavours are aromatic, sweet and wonderful. Enjoy as a midweek family supper or posh it up for something more special. If you don't have harissa paste, flavour the couscous simply with lemon juice and seasoning, or add cumin, garlic, paprika and chilli to taste as a substitute.

Autumn Vegetable Tagine with harissa couscous
(serves four)

• Fry one large chopped onion in a little oil until soft. Add 2-3 cloves chopped garlic and a tablespoon grated ginger, and soften for a minute or two.
• Add a teaspoon each of cumin, ground coriander and cinnamon, then stir in two sweet potatoes, diced (approx 300g), and around 300g pumpkin or winter squash, diced.
• Add four chopped tomatoes, a handful of sultanas (chopped dried apricots would also work nicely) and just enough vegetable stock to cover, and simmer around five minutes.
• Add a courgette, diced, and simmer another ten minutes or so until all the veg are soft.
• Meanwhile, put 200g couscous in a heatproof bowl. Mix a heaped tablespoon harissa paste with 400ml hot water, pour it over the couscous, and cover.
• Toast a handful of flaked almonds in a dry frying pan until they're just turning golden brown here and there. Set aside.
• Add a can of chickpeas, rinsed and drained, to the veg. Cook another couple of minutes to heat through. Check seasoning.
• Sprinkle some lemon juice over the couscous and fluff up with a fork.
• Serve the tagine with the harissa couscous, and topped with the almonds and some chopped parsley.

The Only Thing That Matters About Organic Food

Organic food doesn't use chemicals.

This is inarguable fact; organic certification standards are stringent. And it has several benefits; chemicals are not manufactured, not transported around the country/world, they don't pollute the soil and waterways, they don't harm the wildlife, they don't harm agricultural hired-hands in the fields, and they don't harm us. It's possible - perhaps likely - that organic produce may pick up other pollutants already in the environment or somewhere along the way to the supermarket shelf, but without the direct use of chemicals in its production, you are guaranteed to reduce your exposure by choosing organic food.

So I'd love to know why this week's headlines regarding a recent US study on organic foods proclaim that organic is "not healthier" than the alternatives.

If you've read these articles you'll have noted that despite the condemning headlines, they note that organic food doesn't use chemicals, so choosing it reduces your exposure to pesticides, antibiotics and the like. Which is exactly the point of it. They also note that organic produce is less likely to be contaminated with bacteria, such as e-coli. More good news. So why the negative press?

Oh, apparently an organic carrot contains just the same nutrition as a non-organic carrot. So THAT's why it's not good for us! But hang on - did anyone actually think an organic carrot was more nutritious in the first place? I've certainly never heard organics promoted that way, and the hundreds, perhaps thousands of comments on the news articles repeat the same sense of surprise again and again: we never thought it was more nutritious - we just don't want to eat chemicals! Are these media outlets missing the whole point deliberately, or is this lazy, thoughtless and misleading writing across the board just coincidence? With the vote on labelling of GMOs in California approaching, the timing of this astounding attempted smear on organics certainly couldn't be better for big industrial producers such as Monsanto.

Roger Cohen of the New York Times went as far as to label "the organic ideology... an elitist, pseudoscientific indulgence shot through with hype" and driven by the "narcissism of the affluent". Yup. Read it here. Bizarrely, he did actually note that organic food doesn't use chemicals, as well as some other benefits, while claiming it was a cultish fad of no use to the world. Again, is he missing the point deliberately, or is he just stupid? Does he have shares in big ag? Or a particularly nasty grudge against a hippy somewhere? Can anyone tell me how the desire to eat food not tainted with toxic chemicals is pseudoscientific? Thought not. He goes on to claim that only GMOs can end world hunger, ignoring the facts that GM crop yields are lower and GM crops are falling, one by one, to their self-created super-pests and super-bugs. And he obviously doesn't realise just how much food can be grown in a small space with traditional organic methods.

As for affluence, elitism and narcissism... Sure, organic may be more expensive (not always; some items are the same price or just a few pence more than their organic counterparts these days), but these accusations outright insult all those working hard to grow their own organic produce for a fraction of the prices in the shops. I don't always buy organic, but I won't be labelled a snob because I support it, I grow it, and I choose it when I can. The world has thrived without industrial chemicals for thousands of years and I reject the idea that pouring poisons on it now can possibly be a good thing.

Admittedly, some of the articles do raise one negative effect of organics; apparently organic meat and grain production produces slightly more greenhouse gasses. Not good news, but with a choice between further chemically polluting the earth or increasing greenhouse gasses, it seems to me we're avoiding the real issue; our overconsumption of meat and grain (consider how much grain is grown for animal feed, junk foods and alcohol production).

The Huffington Post got it right, eventually, sort of, in one little blog post which you can read here.

So kids, if you want more nutrition, eat less junk and fill the gap with more fruits and vegetables of all the colours in the rainbow, and add some undomesticated wild greens such as nettles to your diet too - they tend to be far richer in vitamins and minerals. But if you want to reduce your exposure to pesticides, fungicides, chemical fertilisers and systemic herbicides, eat organic. Because organic food doesn't use chemicals.


EDIT: There's an excellent article here examining the study a bit closer, which exposes some rather significant and misleading flaws. Do take a look.

Figs

When you start growing food, one of the first pieces of advice you get is to grow those foods you eat a lot, and those that represent the best value; things that are expensive to buy in the shops. Well, I don't eat figs very often but it's purely because they're so expensive - I love them. So when I wanted to expand my fruit plant collection this spring I splashed out on a fig tree.

I chose 'Brown Turkey', apparently the most reliable in our climate, bought it in March and potted it up by the back wall, where I hope in the spring and autumn the house can provide it a bit of extra warmth and shelter. Figs thrive in pots, with their roots restricted, so this is where it will stay - and I'll perhaps move it into the summer house over winter for frost protection. It was not much more than a stick in a pot when it arrived, but after a few weeks and a bit of sunshine, it began showing buds and its first little fruit. How strange to see fruit forming without first seeing flowers and leaves!

Leaves followed, of course, but no further figs, sadly. The brown spots on a couple of leaves appear to be rust, due to too much moisture either in the pot or in the air. It's not spreading, but I think I'll pinch the worst offenders off to be on the safe side, and give it some extra seaweed treatment. Apart from this, the plant has been healthy and trouble free, and its proximity to the house means it's unlikely to get any attention from birds (fingers crossed).

Now, when I first looked into fig-growing, several sources informed me that figs forming this year would not be ripe until next year. The tree starts to produce tiny figs throughout the summer, and at the end of the growing season any small ones which have formed late should be pinched off to concentrate energy on the earlier-formed ones and get them ripe next season. At least that's what they say. As you can see, my fig didn't hang around, but to my surprise, ripened up over the last couple of weeks!

A few days ago, the fig was hanging straight down and its skin starting to look papery and wrinkled - the signs that it was ripe. It seemed a little small still - elongated rather than plump. I guess I must have underwatered or underfed it at some stage although I have been careful to give it plenty since it started ripening. (I just now read that too much water during ripening can make them split - whoops!)

I ate my one fig all on its own, savouring every moment, and it was wonderfully fragrant, earthy and sweet. I only hope I get to savour more than one next year! I'll be feeding the plant often to encourage it...

My own fig harvest may have been small, but while I was still in a figgy kinda mood I noticed Sainsburys has an offer on Turkish figs at the moment - just £1 a pack! - and, inspired by a fig and dolcelatte tart recipe I spied in Delicious magazine, I rushed out and bought some.

Figs pair well with smoky meats, ripe cheeses, nuts and bitter greens, as most will know; figs and ham, or stuffed with goats cheese, are classics. In our house ripe cheeses are a bit risky (blue? "too socky", goats? "too farmyardy"), so I went for a nice safe bit of brie instead of the dolcelatte, and there's lots of Swiss chard in the garden and leeks are in season, so I added some extra greens to the recipe. And I didn't have any walnuts for the nutty pastry, but I did have a handful of pistachios... Well I never really follow a recipe; I just use it as a starting point... The bacon in the recipe is entirely optional - this would be great without it as well.

Chard and Fig Tart
(serves 4 or more)

• Combine 250g plain flour, 50-80g finely chopped walnuts or similar and a big pinch of salt, and rub in 150g cold unsalted butter with your fingers until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
• Combine an egg yolk with 2 tablespoons cold water, and add gradually to the butter/flour until it comes together (you may not need it all). Knead briefly to combine, then chill for 15 minutes.
• Roll the pastry out (it's very crumbly - try rolling it out between two sheets of greaseproof paper for ease) and transfer to a 30cm square baking tray or flan dish. Prick the bottom all over with a fork, and chill for a further 15 minutes.
• Trim the edges, line the flan case with greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans or uncooked rice, and bake for 10 minutes at 180C. Then remove the paper and beans/rice and cook for a further 10 minutes.

• Finely slice 4 baby leeks and fry gently in a little oil over a medium-low heat, along with a handful of lardons, or 3-4 rashers of smoked bacon, chopped. Meanwhile, strip the leaves from the stems of around ten large chard leaves, finely slice the stems and add them to the leeks. Chop the greens and add them after a couple of minutes. Cook gently until the chard is wilted and any juices are reduced away.
• Time to assemble the tart: Spread the leek/chard/bacon mixture evenly over the pastry base. Beat two eggs and the extra egg white with 100ml milk, season, and pour evenly over the veg. Quarter 4-6 large figs and arrange them on top. Finally, slice/tear up 100-150g cheese (blue-veined, goats cheese, or brie) and scatter over the tart.
• Bake for 20 minutes at 180C, until the figs are caramelised on top and the cheese is oozing and golden.

This was delicious - a perfect combination of crumbly nutty pastry, tasty greens, salty bacon, sweet figs and oozy cheese - and certainly passed the family supper test, with the additional of a few roast potatoes to make sure no-one could possibly go hungry. Lil sis discovered a new food she likes and lil bro (I probably shouldn't call him that) told me it was good three times without being asked!

Amazing Green Tomato Chilli!

*Sigh* My blog has been neglected for nearly a month now! Well who wants to read about this growing season? I certainly have little motivation to write about it. And after a summer-so-far of rotting roots, weather damage, poor growth and slug wars, I've now fought and lost the blight battle too.

Since I started growing tomatoes in my home garden instead of the allotment I've had much better results and much less blight - being able to keep a closer eye on them means catching it earlier, and they're less exposed to the elements. Last year, I was fairly convinced blight didn't even matter to my favourite Angelle tomatoes, which suffered lightly all summer - a few brown leaves here and there, and just one or two small patches on the stems which didn't spread - but didn't start losing fruit until right at the end of the season. This year, after holding off through the whole rainy period, as soon as the sun came out three or four weeks ago it struck hard. Is it all down to the endless rain and high humidity, I wonder, or has the fact I've ditched Levington's seaweed-enriched-but-not-peat-free growbags in favour of homemade compost made a difference too? Seaweed is supposed to provide a measure of disease protection after all. I can only speculate. I managed to pick about three handfuls of good tomatoes, but the rest have been blackening before they ripened, and this weekend I gave in and pulled the lot up. A heartbreaking waste.

I saved some of the best-looking green tomatoes and put them on a sunny windowsill to ripen, but my faith in them turning red rather than black was low so I started to look at other options. Last year I made green tomato chutney, which was very tasty, but I don't eat all that much chutney... Then I received a tip via Twitter from Nate at AFK (thanks Nate!) - green tomatoes can be used in place of tomatillos in dishes such as green chilli. (Tomatillos resemble green tomatoes, but are actually more closely related to cape gooseberries, and have a similar papery husk and a slightly citrussy flavour.) It sounded better than chutney to me, so off to Google I went to investigate.

Green chilli, or Chili Verde, is a Mexican/American dish of pork stewed with chillies, peppers and tomatillos. Having never, to my knowledge, had either tomatillos or green chilli before, I didn't really have a clue what the difference would be or what I was in for, but in light of my love for slow-cooked melt-in-your-mouth pork and the enthusiastic reviews of this highly-rated recipe on food.com, I could hardly wait to give it a go. I made quite a few changes to the recipe to suit our tastes and the ingredients I had available, and it seemed right to add beans as well, like in other types of chilli, so here's my version:

Chili Verde
(serves 4)

• Roughly dice 600g-700g pork shoulder (or four pork shoulder steaks) and sear in a little oil, in a large saucepan or stockpot. Remove from the pan and drain all but a tablespoon of the fat.
• Saute one diced onion and gently in the pork fat until soft.
• Add 3 cloves garlic, crushed, to the pan and soften for a few moments, then return the pork to the pan, add 1 tsp cumin and 500ml chicken stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes.
• Add a green pepper, yellow pepper, one jalapeno (or more to taste), all finely chopped, and saute a few minutes until starting to soften.
• Add 500g-600g finely chopped green tomatoes (or tomatillos!) and a tablespoon dried coriander leaf (or 3-4 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander - I'm just not keen on the flavour of fresh).

• Bring to the boil, then simmer for two hours, uncovered, over the lowest heat possible. By this time the veggies should be mushy, the pork should fall apart on contact with a fork, and the stew should be reduced and thick.
• Check seasoning. Don't be shy - I think the slight sourness and acid of the green tomatoes absorbs a little more salt than expected.
• Drain, rinse, and add one can of white beans (pinto, cannellini, etc.).
• Serve in burritos/tacos, over rice, or with tortilla chips. Add other tasty Mexican-style trimmings as you feel led!

It was really, really good - the flavours were lovely, the pork was beautifully fall-apart tender, and the beans went perfectly. It could easily be adapted for vegetarians too, with or without adding extra veggies. I'm very happy to have, at last, a really good use for those green tomatoes that would otherwise go to waste, and I expect salsa verde, with its many uses, could probably be made with green tomatoes too, as well as numerous stews and soups. In fact, I'm a bit gutted I don't have any more green tomatoes until probably this time next year - I wish I'd saved them all, not just the biggest loveliest ones! I might just have to go in search of some tomatillos instead...