Nettle Season - Risotto

The season for nettle picking has begun. While the shoots are young and tender, and still a yellowy green, the taste is sweet and earthy. As they age, the leaves and stalks turn a darker more blue green, and the stalks get stringy.

I found a good patch of nettles behind the coach house, and with gardening gloves on, picked a carrier bag full.

With my rich pickings a risotto was on the cards. Keeping my washing up gloves on throughout the process, I separated the leaves from the main stalks, and then washed and chopped the leaves and finer stalks. This little lot weighed in at around 125g.

In a heavy bottomed pan I fried 2 sticks of celery and 2 leeks, all finely chopped.

I added the chopped nettles and 200g risotto rice, and stirring well, poured in one pint of hot vegetable stock. Once the risotto reached the boil I put the lid on and stuck it in the Rayburn for 20 minutes at gas mark one. Easy Rayburn risotto. The results were delicious.

The New Rhubarb

Over the past week or so, the rhubarb has come on leaps and bounds. In fact all the plants now seem to be making up for lost time. I was going to wait a few more days before picking my first crop, but decided I would be giving the smaller shoots a chance by cutting some of the (not much) bigger ones, mainly by removing their leaf canopy. So it was a gesture of goodwill really.

I picked just under 600g once the leaves were removed, and chopped them into approx. 1cm lengths. They went into a heavy based pan on the simmering plate, stirred with 200g of sugar, (150g cinnamon sugar and 50g soft brown sugar,) and cooked for around 20 minutes with the lid on, stirring occasionally. 

After a few stirrings, the fruit breaks down and produces a lovely pulpy jam. This proportion of sugar to fruit works better for eating 'as is' than 50:50 (which I used last year.) It gives the perfect balance of sweetness and acidity, and the cinnamon sugar adds an element of toffee apples. Highly recommended. I will mainly be eating this with Greek yogurt or vanilla ice cream, or straight out of the pan.

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.