Edible Garden - The Seedlings

With the vegetable seeds in the propagators, our indoor south-facing windowsills have turned into a makeshift greenhouse. I've done two rounds of planting, first in the propagators, and then out into small pots. The next batch of seeds are in the propagators, but no signs of life yet. (Just a rogue slug next to Treacle's dinner bowl, yuck! Luckily our four legged hoover didn't spot it.) 

For this batch of seeds I used our own compost which seems to be full of egg shells and tea bags, so this may have an effect on propagation levels. I also ran out of Vermiculite (which I used in equal measure to the compost in the previous batch.) So this batch could be seen as an experiment, in a philosophical moment.

So Far So Good With The Tomato Plants.

 Tomatoes, Carrots, Turnips, Beetroot, Celeriac and Dwarf Beans.

Lettuces and Runner Beans.

Edible Garden - Progress

The edible garden is getting somewhere. While I was away on a sneaky weekend in London, my very kind husband took it upon himself to sure up the borders of the vegetable beds. They're not all finished but wow, what a difference! He also weeded the majority of the beds. No easy task. 

The next stage is to cover the 'paths' in old carpet, and a layer of gravel from the front garden. The only difficulty with this plan is that the gravel in question is still on the ground in the front garden, encased in a few years worth of mud. 

Edible Garden - The Beginning

This year I am determined to have an edible garden. We have the vegetable patches already allocated against the south west facing wall, and I have started the seeds off indoors. Here are some 'before' pictures. The rhubarb is already planted (from previous years) and is starting to come up. The espalier trees have nothing to show as yet. The lovage was donated by our kind next door neighbour, and the raspberry and blackcurrant canes have just been planted this month. Much weeding and bed reinforcements are on the agenda before the plants go in. Mainly I can't wait to get my new plant identifying sticks in the ground (check out the lovage!)

Snowy March

I don't normally approve of too much chat about the weather, but we have had snow every week this month and it's getting a bit ridiculous. However, it is rather pretty, so here are a few garden shots.
In the few days of lovely sunshine a couple of weeks ago, I went mad online and ordered a load of vegetable seeds and fruit canes to start our edible garden off in earnest. Suffice to say, everything's still in its packaging waiting for Spring.

Marmalade Cake

Of course I ended up making the aforementioned marmalade cake. It would have been rude not to, especially as we had friends coming over. In retrospect, after I'd used nearly a full 'gift' jar on the cake, I wished I'd just used some shop bought. In fact, the perfect one would have been the Bon Mamon Tangerine marmalade, as that has tiny pieces. Mine created large lumps in the cake, breaking up the flow of the sponge and mascarpone buttercream filling/icing. However, when I opened our half finished jar of tangerine marmalade a few days later, it smelt alcoholic, so it was probably safer that I hadn't thought of that at the time. With orange juice poured over the warm sponge before icing and zest grated over the finished article, the cake had the perfect zingy sweet balance, and looked lovely.

The only annoyance was 5 days later when I opened the tin in the pantry, and the remaining quarter cake had turned a musty shade of blue. I knew I should have been on a minimum of 2 pieces a day. Oh how I cried over my abstention.

Cocktail Of The Month - The Percy Pig

Although inspired by the farmyard sweet array of the Marks & Spencer's food hall, the Percy Pig cocktail is definitely for adults only. It was created a couple of years ago, during a birthday visit from our in-laws, who had never tasted an M&S Percy Pig (or pal.) Mark decided this was too large a gap in their culinary experience, and rushed out to M&S to rectify things. As day turned to night, he set about turning this 'sweet' experience into an alcoholic one. The Percy Pig cocktail tastes exactly like its sweet counterparts, but in liquid form. 

This weekend we recreated the Percy Pig cocktail for a new audience. The cocktail requires a packet of both Percy Pig faces and Percy Pig Phizzy Pig Tails. The challenge is to make as many cocktails as possible before you've separately devoured the packets of sweets. 

The Recipe
1 oz golden rum (preferably Cockspur)
1 oz vodka
1/2 oz freshly squeezed pomegranate juice
1/4 oz freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 oz grenadine
1/4 oz Roses lime cordial

Shake all ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker.

Take one sweet from each packet, and carefully slice a line through Percy's right cheek, fitting him over the rim of a chilled martini glass. Drape the pig tail over the other side of the glass and pour in the contents of the shaker to create the body. You know Percy would approve.

Marmalade Sunday

Last Sunday was Marmalade Sunday. Due to the short Seville orange season, this day tends to fall near 'Black Monday', statistically the most depressing day of the year. Marmalade Sunday offers a ray of tangy orange sunshine on your toast, come Black Monday morning. Making it more of a murky brown Monday.
This Marmalade Sunday should, by all Rayburn intents and purposes, have started on the Saturday. The Rayburn enables you to do the long slow cooking of the oranges overnight on the oven's idling setting. Making it more economical and less labour intensive. I however, only had the urge for making marmalade the following day, and couldn't wait another 12 hours.

I used the recipe from the Waitrose 'Winter Harvest 2013' booklet. A booklet I seem to have devoured since new year. (The Chocolate Orange Brownies are themselves a cure for winter SAD, but probably break every new year's resolution you've set.) 
This recipe has you squeeze the juice of 1kg oranges and 1 lemon into 2 litres of cold water, and put all the messy bits, i.e. the pith and pips of the oranges, in a muslin bag. This hangs in the liquid for the 2 hours while it simmers. 

The remaining skins are sliced separately and added directly to the liquid at the same time.

The muslin bag is removed after the simmering stage, and 2kg of preserving sugar is added. Turn the heat up as high as possible and boil for around half an hour. (This needs to be done 30 mins before the end of the simmering stage with a Rayburn.) The recipe says 15 mins, but no way. I kept a saucer in the fridge at this stage, and got it out to test the liquid for set-ness. Drop a small amount of liquid onto the chilled saucer and wait a few seconds. Push the liquid, and if it wrinkles, it's set. Start testing after 15 mins to get your eye in, and you get to taste the unset bits before time. 
This recipe enabled me, for the first time, to turn the Rayburn up to its highest setting. The gas mark equivalent of 10. The amplifier equivalent of 11. I wasn't sure if the whole thing would take off. But, it gave the most even rolling boil I've ever seen. And always keen to find a reason to extol the virtues of the Rayburn, this was definitely a time for smug pleasure.

This time I did sterilise the jam jars. I washed them in hot soapy water and left them in the bottom oven of the Rayburn for the full marmalade preparation and making time. Probably 3 hours. They didn't need to be there that long, but they did all give a satisfying 'pop' when the lids contracted as they cooled after filling.

This quantity made 12 jars, but I did use quite a few smallish jars (better if you want to give some and keep some!) My next plan is a marmalade cake. I think this may be the new rhubarb!