Going loco at the local food festival

Food festival goodies

As you know, I love making things, especially when it comes to food.  This morning, however, it was time to visit the "professionals" at the Gorseinon Food Festival.

After going to "just have a look" at the different stalls, we carried home some lovely rye bread, soda bread, goats cheese, nettle cheese, honey, pork pies and honey lip balm as well as a couple of bottles of local ale and some stunning Persian food.  Now, if you have never tried Persian cuisine, I shall urge you to do so at the next opportunity!  It is quite unlike anything I have ever tasted before and utterly delicious!  The dishes we took home were Ash E Reshteh (a thick vegetarian soup with noodles) and Fesenjaan (a meat stew made with pomegranate).  The latter is in the freezer ready to brighten up another day but we had the soup for our lunch - oh wow!  And we still have all the other goodies to tuck into... :-)

A bunch of people passionate about their local produce - a truly delightful way to spend the morning!  We shall definitely look out for more local markets!

Heartwarming food on a rainy day

It's very stormy and rainy today - a proper April day!  Not ideal dog walking weather...

Bramley Lemon Curd...

I tried out a new recipe yesterday - Bramley Lemon Curd... since curd doesn't keep that long and this was a new recipe, I only made a small jar as a test but I think this could be a winner.  I might use it as a filling in a Swiss roll or in a pie...or just stirred into some plain yogurt.  It's just so nice that I have the time at the moment to try out new things, something that I didn't have when I was still working in London.  I know how lucky I am and feel very privileged!

I forgot to mention that whilst looking out of the window a couple of days I spotted a male bullfinch in the garden!  Now, we haven't seen finches here for ages, so it was really exciting!  I am sure there was a female there too, so fingers crossed they are nesting nearby and that they have a brood of chicks!

Right, the dog now wants his walk, so I better had put on my wellies and rain coat...

Garden update

Gosh - I am not sure where the last few days have gone!  It is definitely time for an update as the plants in the veg garden and indoors have been growing so much!  Here are a few photos of what's been happening...

Peppers, tomatoes & pumpkin

On the window ledge, the seeds have germinated, even the bell pepper ones!  It is funny how different the growth rate is when you compare the different plants.  The pumpkin ones were large from the word go, the pepper ones are much more delicate and small.  The tomatoes are doing really well and I have planted some of these on into bigger pots with the others to follow as soon as I have had a chance to buy some more pots.  They do seem to be thriving and I haven't even started using the tomato fertiliser yet... If they all survive and crop, we will have a glut of epic proportions :-)  Fingers crossed!  Tomato salad, sun dried tomatoes, tomato sauce....yummy!

Tomato "tree"

Outside crops...

Outside, the raised bed and grow bags are also looking good!  This photo was taken this morning and since then I have earthed the spuds up again to make sure the tubers don't turn green (or whatever they do when you don't do the earthing up). 

You can see that the garlic, onions and broad beans are thriving too and I have just noticed that the lettuce seeds have germinated, so those should be coming through nicely as well now.

With the weather a mixture of showers and a bit of sunshine it's been ideal conditions and it is just a joy to see how everything is coming along!  Which reminds me that I need to order the veg mesh to protect the plot before other creatures find it as alluring!

Whilst our own rhubarb is not quite ready yet, I have bought some and made more jam - 8 jars of it, so that should keep us and family/friends happy for a bit.  Can't wait for the strawberry season, although I am already running out of jam jars, so might have to source some sooner rather than later.  There is always something to do which is exactly how I like it!  I am already thinking about other little projects like making elderflower cordial...and I am sure there is more baking to be done...

Bagels with jam....

Bagels...

So, as threatened yesterday, I did try my hand at making bagels and was very pleasantly surprised with the result!  Not only were they easy to make but they taste great (even if I say so myself).  I can highly recommend giving these a go - the recipe I used was from my favourite book "River Cottage Handbook - Bread". They may not be as perfectly uniform as the shop-bought ones but I quite like that they look homemade :-)


With time on my hands I also made my first ever batch of rhubarb and ginger jam.  I had bought the rhubarb for crumble but had some left over, so out came the jam making kit.  It really only took a few minutes to make and I think it has set ok but we'll see when we open the first jar.  I only had enough for two small jars but I can always make some more with other fruit in season to have some variety. 

Rhubarb & Ginger Jam..

Can't wait to give strawberry jam a go, although it'll be a little while yet until the Welsh strawberries are ready.

One of the nice things about making your own jam is that you can adjust the amount of sugar to your own taste, so it needn't be as sweet as some of the jam in the shops and you can just use whatever fruit you have available.

Well, I can see a toasted bagel with jam in my near future...

Beautiful views...inside and out

Despite the April showers the park looked beautiful this morning and the view down to the sea was stunning! 

We've had lots of rain over the last couple of days which mostly fell overnight, filling up the pond to the brim.  With periods of sunshine added to the rain, everything in the garden is growing incredibly fast and I keep having to earth up the potatoes.  And even the plants inside are doing well - a tiny pepper plant is beginning to uncurl with others hopefully to follow and I now have three pumpkin plants!  High time I got more pots for planting on as they will soon outgrow their current home.

I quite fancy baking something today, so I might attempt bagels for a change.  I have never made these before but am intrigued that they get poached before baking and want to give it a go.  I will post an update later - hopefully with a photo of some yummy bagels accompanying the post :-)

Of pumpkins and perfectly horrible cakes

Grow, grow, grow!

Almost overnight two of my pumpkin seeds have germinated - I can't believe that I checked in the afternoon and couldn't see anything and suddenly, there they were.  Here is a photo of one of them...if all goes well, they should eventually carry small one-portion sized pumpkins which can be hollowed out and used as soup bowls.  I quite like that idea :-)

It has turned much colder today with even a risk of frost tonight, so I have covered the little broad bean plants and the area where I have sown the Valmaine lettuce seeds with fleece and have made sure that the potatoes are earthed up properly.  Fingers crossed all will survive the cold!  The pumpkins and tomatoes are still indoors, so no problem there.  

No news from the pepper seeds - they are yet to germinate but hopefully that'll happen over the next couple of weeks - I believe they take a little longer to develop.  I fear I might be slightly obsessed with growing stuff as I am already contemplating what to sow next. I have to remember that all these little plants need to be looked after properly as well, so I don't want to overdo it but I keep thinking that there might be something else useful and tasty I could try growing.

Less successful was my latest attempt at baking :-(  I had found a recipe for a straightforward lemon drizzle cake which I thought I'd do in little muffin shapes.  Well, big mistake!  They came out absolutely horrible with all the fat having separated and sitting at the bottom of the tin, slowly frying the cakes from underneath whilst leaving the cakes themselves dry and stuck to the paper cases.  I hate wasting food but there was no way I was going to serve these to anyone.  Very annoying!  Needless to say, there is no photo of the disaster!

More on foraging...

Well, as is often the case, I have been thinking more about my last post on foraging and again, I have noticed just how much I have written this from a Western European viewpoint.  Having the luxury of foraging edible things as a little hobby is nothing in comparison to having to live daily on what you find.  It is very easy to talk about how lovely it is to find food in the wild when you have supermarkets etc on your doorstep.  Who knows how we'd fare if we had to go out and find our dinner...not very well, I reckon.  So, I just wanted to add this to my previous post - not to take away from the fun it is to get a few little edible things outside but to appreciate that life could be very different indeed if foraging was a necessity.

Foraging...

Foraged food...

It's raining heavily this morning, so I am very glad I went out yesterday to collect wild garlic leaves to make pesto.  I have always wanted to try this and found a good recipe online on the River Cottage forum that involved said leaves, walnuts, olive oil, hard cheese and a bit of seasoning.  Whizzed up and put into a sterilised jar it should keep in the fridge for up to 3 weeks if it's lucky :-)

There is something quite magical about foraging for food - I haven't done much of it apart from the odd occasion when I have picked "wild" food such as blackberries but I'd like to learn more about it.  It feels basic and natural to go out there and finding something to eat.  The lives most of us lead here in Western Europe are much removed from the original sources of food but when you do go and collect something edible, it seems to resonate with something deep inside.  Since I am no expert, I would definitely not recommend just picking anything that looks tasty - that would be a recipe for disaster - but with the right knowledge, it must be very rewarding indeed.

Bunnies and beans...

Bunny invasion...

Whether or not you celebrate Easter, here is to a happy Sunday!

I have just been outside to check on the crops and have found that the potatoes are already beginning to poke through the soil again, so more earthing up will be needed soon!  Other exciting news is that two of the broad bean seeds have germinated already!  I am hoping the other ones will make it as well but this is definitely a very good start!  Onions and garlic are also doing well, so I am - well - a happy bunny, I suppose ;-)

I think sometime over the next couple of weeks will be a good time to get the lettuce seeds into the ground as well.

Easter

Hot cross buns

It's the Easter weekend and Good Friday at that, so what better excuse to make hot cross buns?  I did exactly that today with the help of my River Cottage Handbook Bread.  I amended the recipe slightly to increase the amount of dried fruit as last year we had to play "spot the raisin", so double the amount went in this year.  The photo shows the result - not too bad, I reckon and they taste rather lovely :-)

Vegetable nursery...

Yesterday, I potted on the tomato plants and given that they are still looking ok today, I guess I didn't do them too much damage in the process.         

I also put a few pepper and pumpkin seeds into pots and then the propagator, so hopefully they will germinate in a week or so and then grow into strong plants.  I should have enough room in the raised bed for the pumpkins as I am planning on putting the lettuce amongst the garlic and onions.  The peppers if successful at all should be best kept indoors on the window sill.  Can't wait to see how many will make it :-)