Ever seen a chicken sunbathing?

Well, I have now. Two very chilled chooks have become a permanent feature in our garden. It took them a while to find a good spot though. Their first choice was one of the raised beds with lovely fluffy soil and freshly sown seeds, but after a gentle nudge followed by a generous bribe of corn I managed to persuade the girls to do their sun worship by the asparagus bed, a safe distance away from the seeds.

How cute is that!

Comfrey patch

We've got a flower bed in the front garden, but haven't had much success with it. Nothing wants to grow there and to make matters worse the neighbours' cats love using it as their toilet. We've tried water bottles and citrus peel among other things to deter the cats with no luck, but it looks like we've finally found a solution... Chicken poo. And lots of it.

I realised that what was missing from our garden was a comfrey patch so that we could make our own tomato feed, and as the back garden will be stuffed to the brim with fruit and veg very soon, I thought I'd let my small comfrey plants (kindly donated to me via Freecycle) see what they will make out of the empty flower bed. The manure we shovelled onto the bed has rotted down nicely, so the comfrey plants will be moving into their new home very soon.

I know comfrey can be quite invasive and their leaves can be a bit prickly. What more could you want from a plant to help you re-claim your flower bed. The battle is on. Who will reign supreme, cats or comfrey?

The fruit are taking over!

I'm constantly complaining about the lack of space in my garden, but lately I've come to the conclusion that it can't be that bad. While I was doing some spring cleaning I was counting all the berry pots and was quite surprised how many (the usual suspects: blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, red and black currants) I'd managed to cram in. To make sure no space is wasted I've moved the water butt slightly and ordered a Japanese wineberry to climb over the arch on the side of the house. Very exciting.

I found another excuse to sneak some more fruit in as we needed to replace two big lavender bushes that had sadly drowned (drainage, drainage!) in their pots during the winter. Off to the shops we went and as soon as I saw the tree section I refused to leave without at least one tiny fruit tree. In the end we dragged two apple trees (Fiesta and Cox's Orange Pippin) and a lovely cherry tree (Stella) to the checkout. Nuts, I know. I'm not convinced we'll be getting any apples of the now total of four small trees that we have (in pots scattered around the paved bits), but I love trees and I'm happy to give them some space if there is a possibility that we'll be getting some fruit.

I think I'm now officially banned from any gardening related shops for a while.

Nuts about biscotti

The egg glut continues, so I've been leafing through various cook books and magazines and trying new recipes. Here's the recipes for my two new favourite biscuits, they're both excellent with an afternoon cup of tea and they keep really well.

Pistacchio biscotti

1 1/2dl soft brown sugar
2dl plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
150g shelled pistacchio nuts

Preheat the oven to 175°C. Measure the sugar, flour and baking powder into an electric mixer and add the eggs. When the dough is nice and smooth, fold in the nuts. Shape the dough into a long and flat log, place on a baking tray and bake for 30 mins. Cool down and slice thinly into about 40 slices. Bake the slices 140°C/20 mins turning once so that both sides bake nicely. Let them cool down and store in an air tight container.


Almond biscotti

150g shelled whole almonds
10g fennel seeds
250g plain flour
a generous pinch of baking powder
150g caster sugar
3 medium eggs

Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan 160°C. Tip all the ingredients except the eggs into an electric mixer. Mix the eggs together, stir through the flour and nut mixture and shape into a large, flat log. Put it onto a baking tray and bake for around 20 mins or until cooked through. When cool enough to handle, lift the log onto a board and slice very thinly diagonally into 30-35 slices. Place the biscuits onto a baking tray and bake for another 10 mins or until pale brown and crisp. Let them cool down and store in an air tight container.

Egg glut

We've got an egg glut. I often have an omelette or a boiled egg with my salad for lunch, but there's a limit to how many eggs one person can eat. Hubby isn't keen on eating eggs unless they've been whisked with some sugar and flour to make a cake, so the responsibility of keeping the egg mountain in check falls mostly on my shoulders. So what's a girl to do. Well bake, of course!

I raided the freezer and found small bags of grated courgettes, so the obvious thing to make was a scrummy courgette cake. I also came across some blueberries and after leafing through my new but sadly neglected cook books I decided to make blueberry muffins a la Nigel Slater.

Blueberry muffins (makes 12)

125g plain flour

125g spelt flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 tsp salt

55g butter

125g sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

100g yoghurt

220g blueberries

Preheat the oven to 190°C. Place 12 paper muffin cases in a muffin tin. Sift together the flours, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Cream the butter and sugar, lightly beat the eggs and add to the mixture. Add the vanilla extract, then mix in the yoghurt. Gently add the dry ingredients and continue to mix throroughly. Fold in the berries. Drop the mixture into paper cases and sprinkle with some demerara sugar and rolled oats if you happen to have some. Bake for 20-22 mins.

Beats my usual blueberry muffin recipe from Fay Ripley hands down.

Simple supper #4

I always thought a risotto was a nightmare to make with all that stirring, but this recipe (from Cook Yourself Thin) made it sound quite easy, straightforward and after tasting it definitely worth the effort. I was taking turns chopping some of the ingredients and giving the risotto a good stir so it didn't even take that long to make. I absolutely love this recipe (so much so that I've already made it twice this week). It's light, zingy and fresh, so it's the perfect thing to be eating this time of year.

Prawn risotto with lemon, spring onion and basil

olive oil
1/2 onion
1 clove of garlic
150g risotto rice
75ml white wine (or dry vermouth if the wine has mysteriously disappeared)
750ml warm vegetable stock
a bunch of spring onions, thinly sliced
150g cooked prawns
3 tablespoons low-fat creme fraiche
a squeeze of lemon
1/2 bunch of basil, chopped
salt and freshly ground pepper

Heat the oil, gently fry the onion and garlic. Add the rice and continue to fry for 2 mins. Add the wine and stir until the wine is absorbed. Start adding the stock, laddle by laddle, stirring until the stock is absorbed (this should take about 10-15 mins). Add the spring onion and cook for 5 mins. Add the prawns and creme fraiche. Keep on the hob and keep tasting until the rice is al dente, then take off the heat. Add a squeeze of lemon and stir through the basil. Season and grate some lemon zest over the top. Easy peasy.

I bet it would taste lovely with some chives and sorrel from the garden, why didn't I think of that before!

To do list for 2011

Where did January go, I can't believe it's almost the end of the month. I've got to make time to finish some half-written posts and read what my fellow veg growers have been up to. I thought I'd start the year by making a short list of things I'm hoping to do this year. Better late than never!

1. Go foraging. I got a lovely foraging guide called Food for Free for Christmas. I want to put it to good use and try to find some wild food on our plates while we're out and about. So far I've only succeeded to find wild garlic, but I'm hoping the illustrations will make me more confident in identifying edible plants.  

2. Go berry picking. My berries never make it to the kitchen, so I'd like to go to a Pick Your Own farm and fill my freezer with gorgeous berries for some winter smoothies. I mean to do this every year, but hopefully I'll get round to it this year.

3. Succeed in successional sowing. I always rush to sow lots of salad leaves and then forget to sow some more later. This summer, I'll try to remember to sow little and often to keep a steady supply.

4. Grow more herbs. We still have lots of room in the raised bed (which was hastily moved before the arrival of the chickens) so I'm hoping to add to our small herb garden and get some more unusual herbs to add new flavours to my cooking.

5. Grow something new. I try to grow something new each year and this year it's going to be artichokes. I've already got some Jerusalem artichoke tubers (no worries people, winter savory is on its way!) ready to go in and I've ordered a globe artichoke to be planted in the spring. I want to grow them not only for the plate, but for their beautiful flower heads as well.

6. Master the art of composting. This year I'm on a mission to make some amazing compost with the help of some chicken poo.

7. Cooking in our summer kitchen. We often cook and eat in the garden when the weather is nice, but so far it's been pretty much the same thing all over again. I'd like to try new things next summer, recipes to follow!

8. Grow winter greens. I haven't managed to grow anything edible (minus some hardy herbs) that will last well into the winter, mainly because we always go nuts in the autumn and start rearranging everything in the garden. Now that we're finally happy with where everything is, I'm hoping to leave some hardy salad leaves in the ground and keep picking them well into the winter.

9. Make more preserves. Another Christmas present, River Cottage Preserves, will come handy when it's time to make jams and pickles. Last year I tried a few things and they were such a success (they disappeared quite sharpish from the larder), so I can't wait to try preserving more fruit and veg this year. Chilli jam proved especially popular with both me and Hubby, so I'll be making a bigger batch (or three) this time.

10. Don't forget to blog! I hope I will manage to keep this up as it's becoming a good collection of my favourite recipes and both veg growing and chicken keeping related tips and reminders for those days I really appreciate that my head is firmly screwed on.