Broccoli Cheese - new recipe

I know that the French have a reputation for wonderful cuisine: healthy, delicious, a people who truly care about their food and take time to prepare and then eat it. They don't hesitate at this time of year to go out into the woods and pick as much fungi as possible which is then turned into the most delicious je ne sais quoi a la fungi. However, I bet even they haven't tried this one...and to be honest I hope I don't ever again.

A while back I planted some broccoli plants, together with some cauliflowers and some red cabbage. More new vegetables for our plot although most people have been planting them for years. A week ago I decided the first broccoli was ready for eating but as Max was away I didn't cut it until Thursday. I bought it in and broccoli cheese was instantly on the menu.

Things started to go wrong when I cut it up. I've been very careful about picking off caterpillars. The first time I realised the leaves of the broccoli were being eaten I picked off nearly 100 rather beautiful multi-coloured caterpillars and gave them to the chickens - who weren't interested.


After that I realised a bit of method was required and picked caterpillars every two days. The multi-coloured ones have gone and I am collecting little green ones - the result of the Cabbage White butterfly I presume. I include the caulis in my caterpillar-harvest and thought I was doing quite well. But on Thursday evening as I cut up the broccoli a couple of small green devils dropped out. I picked over the broccoli fairly thoroughly and more fell out. I cut it smaller, to make the flowerlets easier to pick over, and yet more fell out. I had about 12 by the end of all this picking over but I was also fairly confident that I had done a thorough job.

Cooking revealed three more. They float up to the top and are easy to pick out. Not something I really wanted to know to be honest.

As I prepared the cheese sauce I went through the broccoli again - just to be safe - and there were no more. Excellent and no need to mention any of this to Max.

The Broccoli Cheese was delicious. Just right for a mid-week supper. We were thrilled with our first broccoli. We were looking forward to the second one in fact which needs cutting this weekend probably. And then the crunch came. Literally.

Did you know that the caterpillar of Cabbage White Butterflies are crunchy when they've been boiled for five minutes? Did you also know that they are very bitter? And finally, that biting one rather puts you off the rest of your supper?

It's too late for this year of course but some insect netting will be on my list to Father Christmas!

Clearing beds

With the house to myself and beautiful weather I decided to start clearing the vegetable beds to make way for things that will be growing through the winter. With the passing of the autumn equinox we now have more dark hours than light and it's showing. The leaves on the tomatoes and courgettes are yellowing suddenly, mildew on the courgettes is suddenly worse - although this may be a coincidence. I have mentionned before that we haven't had enough onions in the garden this year and so I thought I would plant some now for harvesting in the spring. But I don't have much space!

So yesterday I cleared the main tomato bed to the delight of the chickens who followed me along the way picking up lots of delicious wriggly morsels! The tomatoes were planted through black plastic so that part was quite easily. However, on both sides of the plastic the weeds had taken charge and this took quite a while a clear. At one point a large stone that I was about to throw in the trailer suddenly hopped away towards the aubergines - it gave me a fright but frogs keep the slugs down so I have no complaint and shock passes quickly!

After the tomatoes I cleared the French beans and beetroot. Maybe I just grew more than normal but we do have the most amazing amount of beans in the freezer this year. Beetroot is harder to preserve but we'll probably eat it this week anyway.

The onion sets will go in later this week. I have three different varieties plus garlic: White Ebenezer (not surprisingly a white onion), Stuttgarter Reisen which has done well for us before, Griselle (shallot) and for the garlic Germidor which is a new one to us and has a violet coloured skin. 500gs of each so a fair bit of planting!

Leeks - disaster!

A while ago I planted just over 100 small leeks. I love adding leeks to just about anything - a good substitute to onions when I've run out and a lovely taste all on its own.

But disaster. I noticed a week ago a few were still very undeveloped and skinny - sort of like Twiggy but in leek-world. I investigated and there was a sort of powdery white mould on the inside of the bases. I thought perhaps it might be a worm and as some were unaffected I hoped for the best. Then yesterday I saw orange spores on the leaves of just about all of them. Quick look in the book and sure enough they have rust. It doesn't affect the taste but it is incurable and the plants stop growing. So, I can eat what is there but they won't get any bigger. Some of them are still pencil size so we're not exactly going to get a feast out of them.

Now that all the children have gone back to university (they left this morning - I have the house to myself) I will have time to get the veggie patch sorted. Sadly the first job will be digging up all the leeks and deciding which ones will be worth keeping.

To add insult to injury, the leaves affected by rust (ie. all of them) cannot be put on the compost heap, but burnt. I can't even give them to the pigs as the spores will stay in the ground and come back to haunt us. AAAAARRRGGHGHHHGHH!

Think of me when you tuck in to leek soup this winter...

Ecocarders

I have been a member of Entrecard for sometime. There are advantages and disadvantages but it is a way of getting my blog seen and, hopefully, picks up a few regular readers. This blog is still quite young so anything that spreads it around a bit is fine by me!

This morning I stumbled across a new entrecard link called ECOCARDERS. I have put the link under my Entrecard advertisement. The link will take you directly to a list of other eco bloggers (who are also all members of Entrecard, but that's not the point!). To help them get started I am also listing them here. I don't usually do this and if the list becomes too long I will delete it. But you may be interested in some of them!

New beds up the garden path

The last few weeks have not been idle ones Up The Garden Path although as autumn arrives and the days are shorter and the nights cooler, things have been slowing down - including the weeds thank goodness! This year has been a learning curve - or maybe I should say the last six months as we haven't been living from the garden for a full year yet.

Our freezer is packed full of vegetables and fruit and I hope very much that together with any winter veg we succeed in growing, this will see us through the winter months. But of course, some things were more plentiful than others. We will be sick of French Beans before the year is out but wondering where all the peas are. There are no Broad Beans left in the freezer at all and all the onions have been used up - although that's partly the fault of the family who insisted on THREE batches of chutney this year. I have enough stewed apples to satisfy the entire planet's desire for apple crumble and apple pie. Also masses of blackcurrant and blackberries - but no raspberries or strawberries at all.

In an effort to put this right I recently ordered 40 bare-rooted strawberry plants; 20 each of Gariguette and Manille. For the past week I have been frantically digging two 10 metre long beds in a new piece of land which we will use as a veggie plot extension. Ultimately there will be three beds there this year and then about three more in the spring (if I still have the energy!) Yesterday the strawberries arrived and I spent two hours planting them through plastic. This morning they are still standing so I must have got something right! According to Alan Titchsmarsh's book planting them now will give us a decentish crop next year. They are under plastic because I simply don't have the time to weed every single vegetable bed and I plant as much under plastic as possible. I have bought a strong green plastic than can be re-used for several years. As in most things, a compromise between saving the planet and saving my back/time.

I also ordered some raspberry canes - these will arrive next week or soon after and there's a rush on to finish the third bed!

I would like this new piece of land to be, as much as possible, permanent beds although at least one bed will be part of our annual crop rotation (all those onions!). So as well as the fruit there will also be a bed for artichokes - I have six plants raised from seed already and waiting - and also a new asparagus bed. I planted asparagus eight years ago but it has only ever given us enough for two people on a strict diet. I think I planted them all too close together. Whatever, we don't get enough and a new bed there will be to supplement it.

Goose Island

At the beginning of this year we had a visit from the fox who took our two remaining Donald Ducks. They were ten years old, walked with a limp and should have been dispatched long before; but our sentimentality wouldn't allow it. The winter was cold and for only the second time since we've lived here the moat froze to the extent that we could play ice hockey on it. Unfortunately it also meant that Donald and Donald couldn't escape into water when the Fox came to visit.

We gave Max some geese for his birthday and recently two small ducks have been added to our wildlife. As a result we have been humming and haa-ing about the winter and the possibility of a second visit from the Fox. Finally last month Pillock Island was decided upon. Max decided that a pile of rocks should be placed in the middle of the moat, surrounded by a wire netting to hold them in place, and a pallet put on top. It was a family affair with the two older boys helping their father and me taking the odd photo. The youngest very sensibly did his homework!


The pile of rocks were punted out (boy, they weighed a ton!) and dropped in place inside the wire. The pallet was put on top and Max even stood on it...briefly. It worked a treat and Dad was able to do his "I told you so" look as he'd taken a certain amount of helpful advice from his sons...and ignored it all.

But then, the island started to list a bit. And then it very gracefully sank. He hadn't counted on the amount of mud at the bottom which the rocks had disturbed and then sunk into! That was the moment it became Pillock Island although my naming ceremony wasn't appreciated!


My idea of four anchor rocks holding the pallet in place was scoffed at several times but finally a mixture of more rocks and the anchors was used to great success. We left some bread on the island and by the next morning both ducks and geese were happily using the island. Since then the geese have decided it belongs exclusively to them - hence the renaming of Pillock Island to Goose Island.

The fruits of our labour

We are currently enjoying a good harvest of courgettes and I found this yummy recipe in Hugh F-W's book - even our non-courgette eaters love it and it goes well either on French bread or as an accompaniment to other things:

1 kilo courgettes, sliced preferably in a magimix or other slicer so they are uniform and fairly thin
3 fat cloves of garlic, crushed
olive oil

Heat about 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a large frying pan and fry the garlic for a couple of minutes. Then add the courgettes and continue to cook over a medium heat for about 20 minutes, stirring most of the time. You want it to cook at a brisk walk and not at a gallop. Just before it starts to brown take it off the heat and serve. DELICIOUS!

I also have a large amount of aubergines at the moment and the family is getting a little tired of eating them; so yesterday I got busy again with the chutney.

As I make it in the bottom (cool) oven I can chop up vegetables one day and then leave it over night to cook. The next day it's all ready to pot up. Given how fast my children eat chutney - have you even thought of eating a chutney sandwich...no other filling except chutney - this seems to be a good way to save hours of stirring in the kitchen.

The next major job will be the apples. Our one apple tree has been here for much longer than us and to most observers is neglected and in need of a really good pruning. To us though it is the bearer of an incredible crop of large apples every year. We daren't give it the drastic pruning it needs in case the shock is too much for it! One day, I dare say, it will succumb to the great big orchard in the sky but for now we will continue to enjoy it.

These apples don't store well as they have so many insects all over them, but they taste delicious in crumble. So each year I stew up the apples and freeze them in one kilo bags for use throughout the year. This year we used the last bag in July so I was very satisfied! Again, I stew them up in the evening - on top of the stove though - and leave them to cool over night. Then they are ready for bagging in the morning and can go straight into the freezer.

Plenty of people told me that keeping a vegetable plot free of weeds would be hard work. Nobody mentionned that using the veg before it went off would also be such hard work. However, the pigs are happy - they get all the peelings from the vegetables and apples : piggy bliss!