The Last of Zucchini (Courgettes)

It is official - our zucchini (courgette) crop is well and truly over. Each of the 6-7 plants produced many many zucchini and I had to be ever so inventive with the different ways they can be incorporated in recipes.  One thing we did not try though and will next year is cooking with zucchini flowers.  Maybe in a tempura batter or similar - don't have any recipes at the moment to start off with.

These photos are taken in September and by now the plants are shriveled small and frost-bitten and flopped on the ground.

Amongst many inventions is the Zucchini 'Lasagna'.  I used slices of zucchini as layer divisions and added canned tomato, fried onions, stale white bread, lots and lots of parsley, lots of cheese and smoked paprika.  variations included a layer of spinach, cooked carrot, celery leaves or marjoram (from our allotment).

More Onions & Potatoes - Comfort Food Recipe

Still cooking with our wonderful onions and the last of our own delicious potatoes!

Here is a comfort food recipe to use those tasty onions from our allotment - a variation on theme 'Sheppard's Pie'.

For the mashed potato 'lid':
Boil 4-5 potatoes and then mash up with Philadelphia light spread, some milk, pepper and a half teaspoon of strong mustard.

For the base:
Fry in butter some onions (two-three), garlic (much - to keep the vampires away) and leeks (one stem - wash well!) - keep stirring so it does not burn. After about 5-10 minutes add capers and small piece of white fish fillet of any kind - fry till fish falls apart and mix all together.

The veg & fish mix goes in a oven-poof dish with the potato mash on top. Keep the lid on while frying the veg&fish mix so it doesn't dry out.

Let me know if you try it and especially if you find more successful variations!

Meanwhile, down at the allotment, the last of potato plants have frozen and flopped to the ground. The above photos are taken about a month ago. Despite the dead plants, there are still plenty of potatoes in the ground and the frost is not very deep, so we will have at least two more weeks of our own potatoes.

Also, the above photos have our coriander - since taking these photos it turned to seed and we managed to harvest and toast some of the seeds to use as spices. The taste is fantastic - a little milder than coriander leaves if used fresh, but the seed can withstand long time of cooking and has a sweeter/earthier taste. Unfortunately we lost most of the seeds, because we did not toast them straight away and the rotted in a paper bag! Ughhhh! Lesson learned: toast them straight after picking or keep in a well ventilate paper bag in one layer (not in a big pile all together).

Jam Session - Spicy Version

Jam - The Spicy Savory Version

Various version of this have been made in my family and I have also sampled this type of jam elsewhere. It is like a chutney, except the spices are not particularly oriental and the finished product tastes more like a concentrate ridiculously tasty thick soup. It is great as a condiment to meals, fantastic on a piece of toast with melted cheese on top or as an ingredient in bakes and casseroles. In fact, I buy bread-rolls - halve them, take out some of the soft center, spread a little bit of tomato puree or tomato pizza base and fill the rest with the spicy savory jam and then grill it with cheese on top. Here is the recipe!


3 kg tomatoes (diced in small cubes, with hearts removed!)
400 g carrots (from our allotment!) (grated)
300 g celeriac (grated)
100 g celery stems (chopped)
200 g parsley roots (from our allotment!)(grated or can be crushed and chopped)
150 g onions (chopped)
150 g sugar
70 g salt

Simmer for 1 to 1.5 hours

60 g vinegar
6 g chili pepper (ground)
5 g black pepper (ground)
50 g celery leaves
100-150 g parsley leaves (from our allotment!) (chopped)

Cook for 30minutes or more

I made three pots full of jam from the above ingredient, although I added far more parsley to one pot and called it Mix II, Mix I had more chili and Mix III was not as exciting so I added some oak smoked Welsh salt to it and mixed some of the Mix II in it... anyhow - the sterilizing of the jars and filling jars is the same as described in the previous post on regular jam. I can imagine that it not that easy to get hold of parsley root if you do not grow your own parsley, but I believe the above recipe is flexible with ingredients, amounts and chili.


This volume of ingredients gave us 10 jars, from pickle-jar size to jam-jar size.

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!

Non-cucumber

Despite some great beginnings - cucumbers did not grow. They were dwarfed by dill that was meant to be a complimenting herb, but grew to about 1.5m and could have supplied many many breakfasts, lunches and dinners. However, cucumber attempted to flower at a dizzying height of 4cm and then dwindled. Oh, well, better luck next time.

So, apart from freezing dill and making dill-butter and freezing that for the dark winter days, I made dill vinegar. The recipe came from Ann Kleinbeg's book 'Flavoured Oils & Vinegars'. Despite the dull title, it has some great salad dressing ideas that work and very nice photos. The dill & peppercorn vinegar - take cider vinegar - place in a saucepan, heat, simmer for 2min, add dill and whole black peppercorns, turn off heat, sit for a while, pour in a jar, where I had placed extra dill. Does not keep forever, but a dark shelf or fridge is fine for a few weeks at least.

Rhubarb Tart

Although, rhubarb season is over - here is the recipe for my mum's rhubarb tart. I froze a few kg of sliced rhubarb and hope to make another tart soon - although it will not be as good as using the fresh rhubarb.



For the base you need:

• 60g butter
• 40g sugar
• 100g plain flour

On top of the base:

• 3-4 rhubarb stems
• 1 tub (350ml?) single/pouring cream
• caster sugar
  
• vanilla sugar ('vanillin zucker' photo below - vanilla sugar from Germany)
  
• cinnamon

Base: mix together using hands until the dough is smooth and uniform - it will be a little crumbly and will break a bit, but that is how it is suppose to be to make a very crunchy base. Leave the dough to sit for 1/2 an hour and then roll out. Turn the edges up, to make sure the glaze does not escape.


Arrange sliced of rhubarb - cut in little circles and arrange them in a pretty pattern of your choice.


Once the slices are arranged - cover all with a mix of 1 tub of single cream (pouring cream) mixed with some caster sugar and vanilla sugar. Sprinkle a little cinnamon on top and bake in about 180-200C for 20min or longer - depending on whether you have a fan-forced oven.


Done! So easy to make - so easy to eat very quickly. I know it might appear a little crazy, this methodical recording of 'making of a tart', but I wanted to record it as I baked it from memory and if I missed a step, mum could correct and improve the technique. I don't take stage-by-stage images of all food I cook!