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!

Mint, Strawberries & PIMM'S

A while ago, perhaps in March or so, we planted mint.  To be honest, it was not much of a planting, I opened a bag of seeds and scattered the seeds randomly along the very edge of our allotment, where only wild weeds and raspberries live.  But now we have a mint plantation! I have been using mint for raita - a traditional Indian yoghurt and mint dip.  The actual raita recipe varies very much, but mine is the minimalist version - natural yoghurt & mint (lots).

At the end of the April we harvested a handful of our first strawberries; some were eaten there and then and some went into our PIMM'S jug.  For those not familiar with this quintessentially British cocktail beverage - it is a gin based (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pimm%27s) alcohol and has a lot of spices in it and makes a good base for a punch and summer cocktails. 

Here is what went in it:

• 1 part PIMM'S;
• 3 part lemonade (chilled);
• a LOT of mint;
• some cucumber;
• slices of one whole orange; and 
• several diced strawberries. 

Cheers!