The ups and downs of growing your own dinner 2016...

Fruittea

I tried this fritter recipe last night and can recommend them. It's from Yotam Ottolenghi. I used halloumi cheese. Well I do have quite a few courgettes!


3 medium courgettes, trimmed and coarsely grated (580g)
2 small shallots, finely chopped (50g)
2 garlic cloves, crushed
finely grated zest of 2 limes
60g self-raising flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
21/2 tsp ground coriander
11/2 tsp ground cardamom
150g manouri (or halloumi or feta), roughly broken into 1–2cm chunks
about 150ml sunflower oil, for frying
coarse sea salt and black pepper


Lime and cardamom soured cream
200ml soured cream
5g coriander, roughly chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom finely grated zest and juice of 1
lime


These are shaped into quenelles in the restaurant. They look like little rugby balls – three-sided oval shapes – made by passing the mix between two dessertspoons, scraping the sides down as you go. They look great but the method, although very simple, is a little cheffy. We’ve therefore changed the shape to the easier round fritters here, for the home cook, but feel free to don the chef ’s whites if you fancy it. All you need is two spoons and some hot water for dipping them in, so that the mixture does not stick. You’ll need to deep fry (rather than shallow fry) the quenelles so add enough oil to the pan so that it rises 5cm up the sides. Cook them for 3–4 minutes and then finish off in a 220°C/200°C fan/gas mark 7 oven for 5 minutes, so that the mixture is cooked through.

We use manouri cheese in our fritters at NOPI. It’s a Greek, semi- hard , creamy ewe’s milk cheese that’s fantastic for frying or grilling. It’s not easy to source, unfortunately, so use feta or halloumi instead.

Makes 12 fritters, to serve 4, or 24 smaller fritters, to serve 8 as a snack.

Oakdene

A little excited a few of my carrots have flowered!!

jue

Hi everyone, I have been up to the plot, burned some more weed which is a good feeling :-)
Brought some well rotted manure from a friends stable, unfortunately it's several miles away down a dirt road, so I am quite limited to picking up this, which is a shame as it's the best rotted manure I've ever seen and free :-)
Slowly, slowly as they say, will try and pick up a bit next week, or even enquire at some stables closer/on a better access road.
Also brought home and disinfected loads of pots, it's probably only the second time I've ever done this....... I know it should be done every year, it's one of those jobs that is always last, gonna be done next week/month.

Fruittea

Hi Oakdene
Flowering carrots may not be a good thing. It means they are bolting. Sometimes caused by lack of water or the need to thin them out. Why not pull up the flowering ones and see what they're like. You can eat the thinings in salads and give the rest a bit more space to grow.

zafiro1984

Fruittea:- I'm creeping up behind you on the savings!!!!

Picked:- 4kg plum tomatoes (Roma) made two batches of soup, now in freezer, the cherry tomatoes - semi dried and they are now frozen ready to be made into 'sundried toms in olive oil'
8 full sized cucumbers over the last three days, made more soup and now all frozen.
2.8 kg runner beans - gave most away.
Still got to deal with
2 kg courgettes
10 beetroot - thinking of making beetroot and chocolate cake as someone on here has fallen for it - must google the recipe, hope I can freeze them.
Really pleased with the savings as I already had everything else with the exception of celery, avocados and Greek yogurt to make the soups.

I am so determined not to waste anything this year, hopefully the freezers will come into their own. (I even emptied, defrosted and gave one a birthday clean ready for the "great freeze")

Fruittea

Morning everyone
Well done Zafiro - that's brilliant. I find it amazing when you add everything up. Imagine if you had to buy ready meals instead of prepping your own. I really like the idea of semi-dried tomatoes - would you mind explaining the technique as I'd like to try them. They also sound as though they might make great Christmas pressies. I usually make up a hamper for family members.
Well I pulled all my frozen berries together and sealed them yesterday I have 3 kilos of strawberries, raspberries and cherries all ready for the winter months. I mentioned before I have them with yoghurt or make up sugar free jellies. It so nice to have the Summer fruits in January. I've used the food saver so everything frozen has the air taken out of it and it keeps better.
I'll be eating plums and then apples and pears and of course blackberries when they come. All of that will be collected from the hedgerow as I only have 1 tiny apple tree but neighbours and fellow allotmenters have plenty. I've brought the juicer down from the attic in readiness for all the fruit juice. I get through about 2 bottles a week.
All the veg is still coming through very well. I'm popping to the shops later today and then will do some totals. Also need to pop to the allotment to water.
Happy growing everyone.

moneyistooshorttomention

I've finally finished doing those raised beds of mine completely - whew.

So I've been rather distracted by that from doing things as well as I planned on in the garden generally. But "will do better" for next year. One of my things - cue for "how can you tell I'm no expert at this?" being how to do brassicas better next year.

The brassicas I have in this year are looking a bit lacy on the leaves this year and checking them out in close detail reveals tiny little things on - which I assume is eggs from cabbage white butterflies (yep...I've seen them flying round my garden and settling on those plants). So - have I got this right in thinking the little lacy holes on my leaves are down to the fact those eggs then turned into teeny little green caterpillars (and one big fat one I found). Guessing this is how the progression goes:
- eggs
- teeny little caterpillars
- big fat caterpillars

and, in future years, I should be okay for non-lacy leaves provided I just wipe all the eggs off the leaves in time before they have a chance to get as far as stage 2 (ie the teeny caterpillar stage).

Have I got that worked out correct? Is there any less arduous way of dealing with getting shot of those eggs rather than individually checking every leaf out (but it has to be organic of course)?

zafiro1984

Fruittea:- The link may be of use. I use a dehydrater to do mine, I also use cherry tomatoes as well as Roma which don't have many seeds and work well. (also good for tom sauce/ketchup). I then freeze them and only put them in Olive Oil flavoured with basil and garlic a few hours before I use them as I'm not sure how long they will keep in the fridge - I think I it may be on bit on the cautious side, but better safe than sorry

http://www.food.com/recipe/make-your-own-sun-dried-tomatoes-oven-dehydrator-or-sun-263929

Money too short..... Cabbage white butterflies are the bane of my life at the moment - I know exactly how you feel. I've bought some 7mm netting and used that with canes to cover the brassicas. If the brassica leaves touch the netting the pesky butterflies will lay their eggs through the netting - so I'm reliably informed.

Fruittea

Hi Everyone
Thanks for the link Zafiro - I'll give the toms a go in the oven.
Brought a tonne of stuff back from the allotment today and will be giving quite a bit away to neighbours - the purple beans are coming in huge numbers and I've had 3.5 kilos of courgettes this week.
I've tried Chicago potatoes for their blight resistance as a main crop - I decided to take them out today and they weren't looking that great. The potatoes seem fine and I got just over 5 kilos from 5 plants. So far I'm not that impressed with the texture but I'll try them mashed tonight and report back.
The veg plot has delivered £41.50 on veg this week and about £15 worth of fruit for the freezer. So that takes the total up to £301.77. I bought mushrooms and peppers in the supermarket £3.00. I've stopped putting the money in a pot as I don't like to have too much cash inn the house. So I'm just keeping a running total but at this rate it's going great guns.
If you have rhubarb Money why not make some organic spray. It always works for me.


Organic Rhubarb Bug Spray
500 grms rhubarb leaves
100 grms soap flakes or liquid soap
2 pints of water.


Boil and then simmer for 30minutes and strain.
Find a spray bottle and spray directly onto to bugs.

moneyistooshorttomention

Definitely contemplating that remedy there. I do have rhubarb - and I shall have to get out there and inspect how much I've got left of the leaves in a minute then.

Presumably the function of the liquid soap is to help the other ingredients to adhere to the cabbage leaves? An economy I make is to buy real cheapo shampoo to put in my liquid soap container - so I'm guessing T*sco Value Shampoo would do the trick instead of liquid soap? I have environmentally-friendly liquid detergent as well that I'm guessing would also do the trick?

How often do you use this spray? Is it spray once and forget about it? Weekly? Wondering re the frequency you use it...

Is it just the cabbage white butterfly it works against - or would it work on other pests too?

Would be useful to have a suitable spray - as I feel a bit squeamish about brushing off the eggs and squeezing the caterpillars - which is what I was doing again today_pale_