My mama just surprised me with (very) early birthday presents … so she didn’t have to look after them until then!
She bought me three David Austen roses.
‘Gentle Hermione’
I love roses, they are my favourite flower. Now, my mum makes a point about not buying plants for their names (I try not to, but I am a bit of a sucker for a good name on a label), but this time she completely changed her tune. She bought me a light pink, gorgeous smelling one with little petals called ‘Desdemona’. This is the name of one of our pet ducks. Then I unwrapped another one called ‘Gentle Hermione’, another light pink one with larger flowers. This is the name of our other pet duck. I opened the third one, unsure what to find (as we had run out of duck names by this point) and was amazed to read a label saying ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’. Whoever named this rose as dark red as strawberries that, is a hero.
(Little explanation: ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ is one of Thomas Hardy’s most brilliant novels that I recently re-read for my English literature Victorian course a few months ago and loved it just as much as the first time I read it. Honestly, it is probably one of the causes for my obsession with cows, farming and the Dorset countryside… But back to Tess: she is a tragic heroine who is disgraced in the eyes of society and therefore unable to find peace and happiness. It is a beautiful book and one I highly recommend for anyone who likes Victorian fiction. And yes, the strawberries and colour red is one of those big symbols that pop up throughout the narrative. Red=blood=loss of purity/murder etc…).
‘Desdemona’‘Gentle Hermione’‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’
We also got given a big (I mean BIG) pile of strawberry plants from our neighbour in return for looking after her veggie garden for a week in this massive heatwave going on. So, planting it is…
But it is getting tricky to get the courage up enough to venture out into the heat trap in the veg garden to pick the fruit.
Someone told me this has been a really good year for strawberries, all due to the time the rain fell this winter (which I thought was all the time. Incessantly. Non-stop). It has certainly been a good strawberry year for us. I’ve been eating them all the time for last couple of weeks.
On top of the strawberries, the raspberries have taken off, along with the red currants, boysenberries, jostaberries and the blackcurrants. I think I almost had a breakdown end of last week due to the overwhelming amount that needed to be picked.
This blurry photograph is of 45 minutes picking of just strawberries. I didn’t even get half way through the patch, and I have eaten a few handfuls from the container already…
Strawberries are those red gems in the veg patch. They are so good for so many different recipes. You have Strawberry Jam, Strawberry and Rhubarb Jam, Strawberries and Elderflower Cake. Strawberries are amazing with natural Greek yoghurt, chocolate cake (which we have been having a lot of, of course), chocolate mousse, mashed with banana (oh, childhood), banana and strawberry smoothies. But one of my recent-ish discoveries has been how good strawberries go with just plain old vanilla ice cream.
It is no surprise that they go wonderfully well with some food chocolate ice cream (because what doesn’t go well with chocolate ice cream?), but as I am not someone particularly ecstatic about the idea of vanilla ice cream, I was very surprised when I had to eat it for dessert at one time in my life, how well the mixture went together.
The subtle vanilla twang and the creamy consistency of the ice cream got marvellously with this juicy berry, but it also looks so spectacular together: the red and white colours mixing together.
I have been replicating that dreamy match lately with some homemade vanilla ice cream (oh yes, I have recently discovered how yummy and easy it is to make ice cream, even without an ice cream maker).
So, lots of strawberries? No problem! Here is your next recipe…
Newest (albeit lowest quality, most cheesy and random) self-help book is now available…
Have you ever felt down-in-the-dumps, stuck-in-a-rut, blue? We all have. Sometimes it is hard to shake it off. We are all looking for happiness but it is good to have a starting point. That is what this self-help book is. Listing ideas that could help you to feel light and enthusiastic about life, I am here to offer a helping hand to guide you behind those dark clouds while we look for rays of sunshine.
I had no idea until recently researching for a cooking book before trying it myself that parsley was good for getting rid of unwanted acne.
Parsley has been used for medicinal treatment for centuries, but has become just a herb we scatter on a dish to make it look fancy. We often reach for a shop bought bottle to wash or cure when we should really take a leaf out of our ancestors’ book and try simple homemade remedies.
Parsley contains a nice amount of antioxidants, which can help reduce the amount of free radicals (substances which may cause skin damage) in your body. Parsley contains beta carotene, which the body converts to Vitamin A, essential for speeding up the healing process of wounds and wrinkles. It provides antibacterial and anti fungal protection, especially when made into an essential oil. This herb is very rich in vitamin C, apparently great for brightening the skin and reducing blemishes. Vitamin C stimulates the production of collagen, which is the substance that keeps skin looking young and vital.
I was very pleased to find this evidence as we grow parsley in the veg garden. It gives the older, perhaps damaged or nibbled leaves that we do not necessarily want to choose to eat, a use.
This is my currant face wash at the moment which I would like to share. I mix the parsley with honey and apple cider vinegar, both well known ingredients for giving a kick-start to our health in a natural way.
If the apple cider vinegar is too strong for your skin, dilute it with 2tbsp water.
Parsley Face Wash
-1 handful of parsley leaves -1tsp honey -2tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
Tear the parsley into small pieces in a bowl.
Scrape a teaspoon of honey into the bowl before pouring in the apple cider vinegar. Mix well.
Using a make up wipe or cotton wool pad, smear the concoction all over your face, rubbing in well and trying to encourage the parsley leaves to stick to your flesh. Continue to rub in, paying particular attention to any spots, until all of the mixture has been used up.
Leave on your face for 5-10 minutes and then wash with warm water and apply a gentle moisturiser on afterwards. Repeat every three days for best results.
*If the mixture starts to irritate (sting, burn) your skin, rinse immediately.
I considered writing a post about eating disorders to mark ED awareness week, despite this being a kitchen garden blog, simply because it has been exactly one year since I went to hospital myself.
I considered writing about how hard any eating disorder is, how different, how similar, how corrupting, how painful. I was going to list the physical problems, like the pain of sitting down on the toilet with not bottom for protection, and the mental problems, like the fear of guilt that makes you feel like you are going to explode. I had a long, long, long list written out, but then I realised: you don’t need me to tell you how bad any illness is. I’m not here to frighten anyone, I’m here to offer some light.
What you need to know is that
When you don’t have an eating disorder…
you feel happy.
you can breath again.
you feel warm.
you can eat proper meals.
you can sit down and watch a movie or read a book.
you can smile.
you can straighten up again.
you can hold a conversation with another human being.
you can exercise because you can, not because you have to or ‘want’ to, but because your body is well enough so you can, for fun!
is enjoying the little things in life you were ignoring.
is buying clothes from the adult section.
is being a truthful person no longer lying.
is being a good friend, daughter/son, sibling, partner.
is being able to join in with Christmas or Easter or birthdays.
is feeling alive.
is being able to say ‘sod you ED, I beat you!’
Many professionals have likened an eating disorder to someone with a broken arm or leg, that you have to give it time to heal. I’ve never quite seen that connection. TO me, the best way to describe an eating disorder is to compare it to an addiction – drugs, alcohol, even smoking. It is accepted that it is really hard to break these addictions, but there is an awful lot of secrecy and words not said. Broken body parts are acceptable to talk about, to be on display. Eating disorders are there to be hidden, to be shameful, embarrassing, a secret. No one goes round advocating that they have one, everyone else goes around staring and whispering, being frightened of this unknown, well, thing. But back to likening ED to addictions: Most of the time it involves intervention, extreme therapy and abstaining from the substance forever. Well, an eating disorder is like these addictions, but the thing we are addicted to is not an external object, but inside us. We become addicted to the feelings we get when we restrict/overeat/purge/exercise and it becomes our safety net. As the world becomes more terrifying, that bond gets stronger. It is so hard to change someone’s mind. For some reason, the pain you get from an eating disorder seems better than the pain you feel when you go against it, then you are stuck in a cycle and it is so hard to break.
Life is hard. I’m sitting here, a year on, and my meal plan has been slightly increased again – not because I’ve lost weight, but because I’m still a couple of kg under what would be the healthiest weight for me to maintain to be safe from anything that might cause me to lose weight in the future. Even now, I have to keep a strict eye on myself at all times.
I still have bad days. Some VERY bad days where everything hurts so much. I sometimes would not get up if it was not to feed my cat and the idea that I could garden or practice yoga, the three things in the world that make me feel at ease and give my life meaning at this point in time.
I am recovered, but I still have an eating disorder – my way of looking at the world is different to everybody else’s. I can’t afford to skip a meal otherwise it means I’m ‘ill’ again. I can’t eat at random times, I have a strict timetable to keep to. I can’t join in with random exercises otherwise hyper-gymnasia takes hold. My whole day is about staying in control and not losing my hold of the steering wheel – because once we are off course, it is hard to get back. Life feels very hard sometimes. If anyone wants to know how an addictive eating disorder feels, listen to Sara Bareilles ‘Gravity’ on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_U6iSAn_fY
But then I have those beautiful moments. Those moments when I see my broad beans poking up their heads from the soil. When the first blossoms flower on the trees. When I feel the sun on my face. When I’ve cooked a dish I’m proud of. When my dog bounds up to me in the snow. When my sister or brother crack a joke that makes me laugh until my sides hurt.
Eating disorders are like all addictions – they take a very strong hold of you, but they don’t really own you. Despite how you feel, you can always come back. There is always something to come back to.
Everyone: if you know someone who is struggling from an eating disorder, give them a hug and tell them that they are not alone despite what they think, and that you love them. Sometimes that’s all anyone needs to hear to chase a daemon away. Stay safe, stay strong, stay happy.
I’m writing another book, this one is for everyone, to teach us all how to find sunshine in our lives.
Anyone have too many peppers? Any one at a loss of what to do with them? Try my new recipe…
Pepper Pasta
(Serves 2)
-2 servings spoons of pasta -Olive oil -1 red, 1 yellow and 1 green bell peppers -2 handfuls of cheddar cheese, grated
Bring a large pan of water to the boil. Add the pasta and then leave it to simmer for about ten minutes, or until the pasta has cooked. Drain and set aside.
Add a generous splash of olive oil to a frying pan.
De-stalk, de-seed and slice the three peppers into long, thin strips. Scrape them into the frying pan and bring to a high heat, stirring. Once they start to char slightly, turn down to a simmer.
Scrape the pasta into the frying pan and mix into the peppers. Bring the heat up briefly for a minute or two and then remove the frying pan from the flame.
Divide the mixture in half and serve onto two plates. Sprinkle a handful of cheddar cheese over the top of each helping. Serve.
We’ve actually got around to ‘turning’ a compost heap over.
That is quite and achievement here. We often fill compost heaps so high that we can’t possibly turn them over without creating a collapse similar if Everest gave way.
But we did it, in two hours in the rain. We kind of had to do it because, well, I needed more space for the onions and garlic. I’ve planted somewhere around 250 onions… we were given quite a few but it was good seeing as the cats have already dug some up…
But yes – back to composting – why do we ‘turn’ compost over? Why do we compost in the first place? Why not chuck it in one of those bins?
For shame.
Right, compost: organic matter that has been decomposed and recycled as fertiliser and soil amendment. Compost is the KEY ingredient to organic farming. Despite the slug pellets, that is what we aim to do.
Have you ever read The Running Hare by John Lewis-Stemple? Do, its great.
You make your compost out of basically anything in the garden – that can be cut grass, leaves, old plants, some people choose not to include their weeds but I do because I like dumping them somewhere and feeling like I am recycling. You can also put your food waste in it. This might attract rodents, of course, but what about your tea bags, banana peels, veg scrapings? Those are all really good to rot down and so not worth giving to the bin man. You can put cardboard and paper on too – covering the heap with cardboard is a good way of helping it to rot down.
But why should I compost?
Saves money – do you know how expensive compost is?
Saves resources and reduces negative impacts on the environment by avoiding chemical fertilisers.
Improves soil – it feeds it with a diversity of nutrients, improves soil drainage and increases soil stability.
Compost takes time. It can look messy. But it is so worth it for a gardner. It is an investment.
So, if you don’t know already, ‘turning over’ the compost bed is aerating it. It gives it a flush of oxygen that encourages the bacteria breaking it down not to remain sluggish. It therefore speeds up the process, sometimes by weeks.
To aerate your compost, fork or shovel the compost into a newly set up enclosure next door to it. It is that simple. If your pile isn’t as big as a mountain.
Uni has certainly eaten up a lot of gardening time, plus the clocks changing and the day hours been practically non-existent. So it was late, but we have finally done some autumn planting.
Last week I sowed broad beans ‘Claudia’, peas ‘Meteor’ and got going on the onion sets.
(Here are my posts all about broad beans and peas: Broad Beans and Peas)
We bought 3 sets, then two lots of neighbours gave us more to plant, one being very generous with garlic as well! We are basically going to be growing an acre of onions next year… if I get them all in.
The varieties of onions planted so far are Senshyu, a golden coloured variety, and Electric, red coloured.
If they all grow, we’ll have a lot of onions but fortunately, onions are one of those vegetables that appear in soooooo many recipes that everyone will always find a way to use them. They are essential base ingredients. They are in stews, stocks, curries, casseroles, pizza, raw in salads, moussaka, raw with burgers, fried with sausages, bolognese, quiche, stir fry, soups… but here is a new recipe for onions to get you in the bulbing spirit.
Pasta with Fried Onion and Tomato Salad
(Serves 4)
-About 400g tagliatelle pasta -2 onions -Olive oil, for frying -8 handfuls of spinach -16 cherry tomatoes
Bring a large pan of water to the boil. Add the tagliatelle pasta and cook for about ten minutes, or until cooked through. Drain and set to one side.
Peel and cut the onions in half before slicing thinly. Put them in a frying pan with some olive oil and fry until soft and golden. Remove from heat.
Cut the cherry tomatoes in half. Put the pasta on each person’s plate and mix in 4 tomatoes worth of the halves and two handfuls of spinach, per person. Divide the fried onions evenly and mix in too. Serve.
The beetroot is the taproot portion of the beet plant, usually known in North America as the beet, also table beet, garden beet, red beet, or golden beet. It is one of several of the cultivated varieties of Beta vulgaris, grown for their edible taproots and their leaves, beet greens. Beta is the classic Latin name for beets, possibly Celtic origin before becoming bete in Old English in the 1400s.
Other than as a food, beets have use as a food colouring and as a medicinal plant. From the Middle Ages, beetroot was used as a treatment for a variety of conditions, especially illnesses relating to digestion and the blood. Bartolomeo Platina recommended taking beetroot with garlic to nullify the effects of “garlic-breath”. Many beet products are made from other Beta vulgaris varieties, particularly sugar beet. During the mid-1800s, beetroot juice was used to colour wine. Beetroot can also be used to make wine nowadays completely, no longer just an addition to the drink made from grapes.
I’ve only ever used ‘Bolthardy’ but I think that it is a brilliant variety. Very rich, dark pinky-red colour, tastes pretty good and lasts in the ground for a long time. I grew too many two years ago and had loads left over in the ground (seeing as only three people in my family liked beetroot then). I thought they would just rot and I would give them to the pigs in winter, but they didn’t. I have been pulling them up two summers on. The outside is as rough as I thought it would be so I discard them, but the inside is still usable. Of course, I would recommend harvesting them in their first season as that will be when they are most delicious!
Another variety I have seen in a vegetable garden lately is candy coloured beetroot – white with pink swirls in it, called ‘Chioggia’. It is very pretty and tastes good too.
To grow beetroot seeds, sow thinly, March-July, where they are to crop, 2.5cm (1″) deep, directly into finely-prepared, well-cultivated, fertile soil, which has already been watered. Allow 30cm (1′) between rows. I discovered that mine grew so much better when the ground was fed with well rotted manure. Beetroots can be grown in shade, but they seem to prosper more in direct sunlight. Keep them shaded when starting off with horticultural fleece. Regular sowings every three weeks should ensure a continuous supply of young beetroots. Harvest June-October. Harvested roots can be stored in dry sand for winter use.
Usually the deep purple roots of beetroot are eaten boiled, roasted or raw, either alone or combined with any salad. A large proportion of the commercial production is processed into boiled and sterilised beets or into pickles. In Eastern Europe, the beetroot soup borscht is popular. In India, chopped and spiced beetroot is a delicious side dish. A traditional Pennsylvania Dutch dish is picked beet egg. Hard-boiled eggs are refrigerated in the liquid left over from pickling beets and allowed to marinate until the eggs turn a deep pink-red colour. In Poland and Ukraine, beet is combined with horseradish to form popular cwilka. This is traditionally used with cold cuts and sandwiches or added to a meal consisting of meat and potatoes. In Serbia cvekla is used as a winter salad, seasoned with salt and vinegar, alongside meat dishes. As an addition to horseradish it is also used to produce the “red” variety of chrain, a popular condiment in Eastern European cuisine. A slice of pickled beetroot is combined with other condiments on a beef patty to make an Aussie burger. When beet juice is used, it is most stable in foods with a low water content, such as frozen novelties and fruit fillings. Beatnins, obtained from the roots, are used industrially as red food colouring e.g. to intensify the colour of tomato paste, sauces, desserts, jams and jellies, ice cream, sweets, and breakfast cereals.
Oldest archeological proofs that we used beetroot in ancient times were found on the Neolithic site of Aartswoud in the Netherlands and in Saqqara pyramid at Thebes, Egypt, which dates from third millennium BC. There are Assyrian texts that say that beetroots were growing in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in 800 BC. We can be positive that Mesopotamia knew about beetroots at that time because of these texts. Ancient Greeks cultivated beetroot around 300 BC but didn’t use the roots of the plants, only eating the leaves. They still respected the root and offered it to the sun god, Apollo, in the temple of Delphi and also considered it to be worth its weight in silver. Hippocrates used leaves of beetroot for binding and dressing wounds while Talmud, written in 4th and 5th century, advises eating beetroot, among other things, for longer life. Romans ate the roots but mainly for medicinal purposes. They used it as a laxative or to cure fever. Some used it as food as Apicius, the famous Roman gourmet, wrote a book called “The Art of Cooking” and in it gave recipes with beetroots used in broths and salads with mustard, oil, and vinegar. The root part of the beet was cultivated for consumption in either Germany or Italy, first recorded in 1542. The Elizabethans enjoyed them in tarts and stews. Medieval cooks stuffed them into pies. All these uses were an old variant of beetroot which was long and thin like a parsnip. This variety is thought to have evolved from a prehistoric North African root vegetable. The one that we know today appeared in the 16th and 17th century in Europe. It needed a few hundred years more to become popular in Central and Eastern Europe where new cuisines with beetroot started appearing. In 1747 a chemist from Berlin discovered a way to produce sucrose from beets. His student, Franz Achard, perfected this method for extracting sugar, leading him to predict the inevitable rise of beet beer, tobacco and molasses, among other products. The King of Prussia subsidized a sugar beet industry. The first plant was built in what is now western Poland. Today, around 20 percent of the world’s sugar comes from sugar beets. Beet sugar production requires 4 times less water than sugar cane production, making it an attractive crop throughout Europe. In Victorian times, beetroot was used to bring color to an otherwise colorless diet and as a sweet ingredient in desserts. Industrialisation allowed for easier preparation and conservation of vegetables, so beetroot became more available. The rosy betalain-rich juice of red beets was used as a cheek and lip stain by women during the 19th century, a practice that inspired the old adage “red as a beet.” Food shortages in Europe following World War One caused illnesses, including cases of mangel-wurzel disease. It was symptomatic of eating only beets. After the Second World War, because of the rations in some places, the most available vegetable was pickled beetroot in jars.
The beet greens (leaves) are also edible. The young leaves can be eaten raw as part of a leafy salad whilst the older ones are better boiled or steamed, like cooked spinach. I find that the leaves are very strong tasting and don’t particularly like them. But my poultry love them. Do not cut the leaves, but twist them off to prevent the colour ‘bleeding’.
Many complain that beets have an “earthy” taste, which isn’t far off the mark. Beets contain a substance called geosmin, which is responsible for that fresh soil scent in your garden following a spring rain. Humans are quite sensitive to geosmin, even in very low doses, which explains why our beet response ranges from one extreme to the other.
They are rich in antioxidants, folic acid, potassium, and fiber. They also contain unique antioxidants called betalains, which are currently being studied as a potential weapon in the fight against cancer. Beetroot can lower blood pressure and may increase blood flows to the brain thereby preventing dementia. A 2010 study carried out by Queen Mary’s University in London found that drinking just one 250ml glass of beetroot juice a day dramatically lowered blood pressure for several hours. Nitrates lower blood pressure because bacteria in the mouth and gut convert it into the gas nitric oxide, which relaxes and widens the blood vessels, allowing blood to circulate more freely. Tests were conducted to see if beetroot would effect athlete’s performances. Athletes could run faster after drinking beetroot juice and cyclists racing in high altitudes had quicker finishing times, averagely 16 seconds quicker after drinking beetroot juice too. Betacyanin, the pigment that gives beetroot its rich hue, is a powerful antioxidant that has been shown to possess anti-cancer properties. In 2011, a study carried out by Howard University in Washington, USA, found that betacyanin slowed tumour growth by 12.5 per cent when exposed to prostate and breast cancer cells. I remember reading an interview a while ago in the Telegraph about tennis player Ross Hutchins who suffered from a variety of cancer. He had beetroot and orange juice every morning and evening. ‘Even when I was feeling really ill, I made sure I nailed eight beetroots a day,’ he says. The red colour compound beatnin is not broken down in the body, and in higher concentrations may temporarily cause urine or stools to assume a reddish colour, in the case of urine a condition called beeturia.
I really didn’t like beetroot. I really intensely disliked it. The first time I got myself to like beetroot was when it was grated with a leafy green salad alongside a baked potato with cheese and baked beans. I had to finish everything on my plate, including the beetroot, but surprisingly, I actually came round to it. It was ok grated into tiny pieces, not so earthy and overpowering. I was pretty happy as it meant I could grow it in the garden and actually eat it. They didn’t convert me into a radish or fennel fan, but beetroot was good enough. I have been harvesting my two year old beetroots and enjoying them at last.
Grated beetroot on top of poached egg yolk on toast
Sprinkle grated beetroot over mashed avocado on toast, it looks beautiful. Another thing I like is grated beetroot sprinkled on top of toast that has been covered with butter and a poached egg yolk (I don’t like egg whites. I’m sorry I’m so fussy…).
Avocado on toast with beetroot – this is two year old beetroot!
It is a universal fact that cheese and courgette go well together. Well, it is a universal fact concerning this blog.
I had the crazy but actually good idea of jazzing up the ordinary cheese on toast – what about adding courgette too?
I was a little bit hesitant, seeing as I was going to be eating it, but it was actually good. I had no need to fear, and I survived it!
It made a change to just simple cheese and bread and is another way of using up a courgette if you are having a glut.
Enjoy!
Courgette and Cheese on Toast
(Serves 2)
-2 slices of bread of choice -200g cheddar cheese (or enough for 2 people) -1 medium sized courgette
Preheat the grill to a high temperature. Place the two slices of bread underneath it and toast 1 side.
Slice or grate the cheese. Cut the courgette lengthways in half. Cut each strip in half again and cut the lengths into cubes, 1/2 a courgette per person.
On the side of the bread that has not been toasted, spread the cheese over the surface. Spread the cubes of courgette over the top of the cheese.
Place the bread back under the grill and toast until the cheese is bubbling and melted. Serve with a side salad.
The Kitchen Garden Blog 