Berry ice-cream cake

Partially inspired by a recipe I saw somewhere and also because the ice-cream melted quite a bit on the way home from the shop...

Here it is:
1 tub (1L) vanilla ice-cream (full fat)
500g strawberries
500g raspberries
150-200g grated white cooking chocolate

Layer all ingredients in a cake tin of sorts lined with aluminium foil. The lining bit is important as otherwise you cannot get the cake out without melting everything.  Cover with foil and put in the freezer. A couple of hours is best - if left overnight then it turns into an ice brick and too solid to cut.

I did think of melting the white chocolate, but that was a bit time-consuming. The whole assembly took about 10 minutes or less. Most of it was washing and dicing strawberries. Very happy with the result!

October

It has been four months since the last post and it has been extremely busy on the allotment and in our lives!  All the potatoes are out and we have multiple sacks with the 'Desiree' being the most prolific.  In general, all plants that were watered, weeded and got some feed produced massive potatoes (size of half-an-adult's head...) and there were 8 to 10 potatoes per plant.  Maris Piper and two rows of Aran Pilot went in on the 10/4 and 16 weeks later they were monsters! The poorest crop were the three rows of 'King Edward' near the neglected end of the patch. This wasn't a truly scientific analysis, but it seems the lack of water, food, too many weeds left behind (including bind!) prevented monsters here. Or it just might not have been a good spot, or weather for this variety. Ah well, 3 sacks full should be enough!

This weekend we caught up with the allotment neighbors and the latest gossip.  There have been pumpkin and cabbage thefts reported!  Our neighbor removed her prized gigantic Halloween pumpkin, so no one steels it before her grandchildren can carve it.  I can see how the pumpkin can be stolen, especially an oversized prize item, but cabbages?  Apparently the thief has torn the white-fly netting and pulled out the entire row of cabbages! One of the allotment holders recalls seeing people with flashlights n the allotment patch at 11pm at night on her walk back form the balling green. However, she was scared to confront the cabbage thief.

We have several small pumpkins - or squashes, although I am not entirely sure which is which.  Tonight we made a delicious risotto using half of one of the pumpkins. 

The other fruits of plenty are our tomatoes.  Cherry tomatoes as well as the larger variety - 'money makers' are producing lots of fruit and recent warm weather has helped them ripen - or confused them into thinking it's still summer.  Despite the chiller nights now approaching, it has been unusually warm for October and it has helped our tomatoes and chillies thrive. We have so many little chillies! Most dishes in our household have a bit of a kick now.  Surprisingly we still found some raspberries and strawberries - and some not very autumnal flowers, such as sweet-pea! Also in the late summer surprises is the capsicum plant with two large green capsicums. Still growing as we're just waiting for them to turn colour - or for us to decide to eat them!  However, I will keep a stronger lookout for any capsicum thieves in the area!

End of March

This is a much warmer and sunnier March than we expected and we have managed three consecutive weekends of hard labor in the allotment.  By hard  labor I mean up to 3 hours of weeding and planting each weekend.  Last weekend we weeded an area of 4 x 4 meters.  Found a giant earthworm too - several of them, around 30 cm long each! 


We planted two more rows of potatoes Arran Pilot and Maris Piper, a row of mint (for fruit salad and chocolate desserts) and an area with four mounds of pumpkin and four areas for zucchini (courgettes for the locals).  Pretty impressive for one weekend and the whole allotment instantly looks more manageable and less like a vast wilderness.  Arran Pilot is a first early potato, successful in all soil conditions including light soils.  Planted in March they should be ready by June - one step further to a more self-sufficient household.  Here is a great link for the various potato varieties: http://www.allotment.org.uk/vegetable/potato/potato-flavour-type.php


It is fascinating to see the rhubarb leaves come out of the ground and open up.... The below photo was taken over a week ago and last we checked several of the leaves had opened.  Rhubarb is best eaten until June, so I hope there is enough for several desserts + some for freezing.

About raspberries: I don't think they had been trimmed in years. Winter meant the dead crop had to be reduced, and then brutal decisions about keeping only half-a-dozen of the strongest stalks per bush. Doesn't look like there are any shoots left for next year - fingers crossed! All three rows now look much neater, and more open to let the air flow. Was fascinated to see each plant had lots of ladybugs hiding in the crevices - tried to relocate as many as possible to the newly trimmed plants. Long term project will be to set up wire fences to support the crop. But that's a low priority now. Key was to remove last year's fruiting stalks and any that had white flaky bark (dead).

It was hard to do anything with the soil as it was dry and dusty.  It has been at least a fortnight without rain - alas rain came today and saved us from running around with watering cans - nice!  It has been warm and cherry, apple and other trees are blooming - together with the ridiculous cheeriness of the birds it's all a bit dizzyingly nice!


Finally, we did not walk away empty handed.  Collected a bunch of thyme, parsley and wonderfully fragrant daffodils.

Raspberries

Raspberry season is pretty much over and there might be one or two more tubs (as in old yogurt tubs, not a fancy new measurement) left to collect.

The best plants were the one we managed to prune in early spring. In 2009 most plants developed a strange type of disease and berries became moldy and uneatable, but after pruning this seems to have fixed the problem. We also moved the plants around, leaving a gap in between and scattered sawdust. The latter was an advise from someone, so we don't really know if it actually helps, but certainly makes weeding easier.

August

Our August update will have to follow in several installments as this was a very busy month on the allotment. However, here is a synopsis:

• We started digging out onions.
  
• We had zucchini, parsley, raspberries in abundance.
  
• Out of a whole row of beetroot, we harvested 2 and have 3 more in the ground. A little disappointing on the quantities there, but the flavor makes up for it.
• In addition, we invented many recipes for all the potatoes and zucchinis. Every recipe that could do with a spoonful of parsley - got several cups of it.
• It was a bit hard to work out what can be planted in August. We have planted more potatoes, which by now are close to flowering. Our runner beans were planted in early August and now are close to harvest. (In fact, collected a handful tonight - shall steam them for dinner tomorrow.) We planted more coriander, rosemary and three rows of lettuce.

Jam Session

We have sweet and savory jams and lots of them. They will not last the whole winter, but they taste so much better than anything shop bought - of-course - and I love knowing where the ingredients come from and what's in the jam. The sweet jams consisted of just berries, sugar and nothing else. We collected redcurrants, blackcurrants and raspberries from a local pick-your-own farm. So 'technically speaking' this is not a purely allotment post. But then again, the local farm is also part of our country experience so we added it! We did not have enough raspberries to make jam.

Picking berries is a fantastic day out - fresh air and nobody weighed us before and after - so, lot's of fresh berries to eat while you do it. Yes, we did pay for the berries in the baskets, so we are not complete crooks! ;)

First of all, we tried to eat as many fresh berries as possible: porridge, breakfast cereal and a more indulgent version - with ice-cream.

The most tedious part is separating berries form the stems and picking of any debris - leaves, freeloading bugs, squished ugly berries. The trick with redcurrants is to give them a slight twist on the stem before pulling and they leave the stalk behind!


After berries are rinsed and lightly dried (place a kitchen towel at the bottom of a bowl, to absorb most of the moisture) - weight the berries, place them in a pot - boil and add sugar. Most recipes require 1:1 ratio berries to sugar, but I always use 2:1 (less sugar) and, if I know the jam will go in the fridge and will be consumed within a month - even less. However, if you like things sweet 1:1 does the trick. Blackcurrants can be boiled with standard sugar, however raspberries, strawberries and similar really benefit from preserving sugar that has added pectin.

It is very important to have the jam jars sterile. Nigella Lawson claims that a hot wash in dishwasher does the trick, but we don't have a dishwasher anyway, so I wash jars and lids with soap and very hot water (if you don't, the jars can break in the oven) and dry the jars in hot oven that is preheated to 100C or thereabout.

When the berries have dissolved or almost, you need to check if the jam will set. Place a spoonful of jam on a cold plate and after a few seconds move the jam across the plate - if it slight;y wrinkles - it's done. Pour jam in the jars and cover with the trio of waxy paper disk, transparent film circle and rubber band - all come together in the jam making kits in culinary shops and now even craft shops. Place the lid tight and wait for the lid to pop in as the jam cools - if the lid does not pop in, it means that it is not an air-tight seal and you should eat that jam faster and refrigerate it. So here, I am sure I missed something out, but it is not a complicated process and can easily be done in an hour or so!

Berries

We inherited quite a few raspberry plants from the previous owner of the allotment, however we transplanted several additional plants that were scattered towards the back of the allotment to create several neat rows of raspberry bushes.



At the moment we are getting batches of berries - about two handfuls every week. Unfortunately quite a few of he creatures have discovered them too - so it is a bit of a race... who get's there first. Some of the berry bushes are yellow raspberries -pretty big ones and very tasty.




Considering that raspberries in shop are 2-3£ a punnet or more - we are making some delicious saving.



Below is an image of me making Panna Cotta - that worked a treat with the berries!



Here is the recipe I used - yes, I know it is from a TV show - but it really works. I used the best ingredients I could afford - organic full-fat stuff and also added vanilla bean paste.

While raspberries have been such a success, the same can not be said for strawberries. Even after netting, covering the ground with hay and watching out for any ready berries - we still have had only a few whole berries. Slugs get most of the berries, even the ones that are not quiet ready and we seriously regret our decision not to use any kind of slug-poison.