Harvest Monday - pesto

I had a load of basil that needed picking this week so decided to make a pesto.

Pesto usually has cheese in it but I tend to just use basil (or rocket) plus toasted walnuts (instead of pine nuts) plus garlic and olive oil

Because of the mixture of green and purple basil leaves the pesto ended up being a delightful brown colour....it tasted good though and goes well in sandwiches, here with a gooey goats cheese on sourdough

I also harvested the first small courgettes this week, yippee

Plus a whole load of broad beans and some marjoram

So I made a broad bean and egg stew, based on Shaheen's recipe but using marjoram instead of dill. Last year I made this so many times, it's quick and easy. Adding sweet just-picked courgettes gives it an extra dimension too (though it's delicious without the courgettes anyway.)

A few days later there were some more small courgettes ready for picking, plus I lifted a couple of onions to cook with too, here using up one to make another broad bean stew because I ended up harvesting the rest of my broad beans aswell (not pictured).... I was going away for a few days and it had been quite dry, the plants were dying off, so i worried the beans might get past their best by the time I'm back. Jan and I spent a busy evening podding them all and then blanching/freezing a few bagfuls to eat another time.

We enjoyed the stew with some more early potatoes. When harvesting, I've found that for some of the plants the seed potatoes still had a bit of oomph left in them, so I tried not to disturb the plants too much whilst rooting around for tubers, with the idea that they might continue to grow a bit more / produce more potatoes. This has worked in the past but the tops don't look too healthy so it might not be that successful this year. Soon I'll be clearing the area to plant-out leeks anyway.

The raspberries and other soft fruits have come along this week though.....yuuuum. My strawberries are nearly over so it's good to get some others to take their place. Bottom-left are saskatoons which are a bit like blueberries but the plants are less fussy about soil

Raspberries are my favourite though. They seem to be really good this year - I think the rain has helped them (I don't tend to water things on the allotment very much so they sometimes dry out a bit)

I'm still away but have left Jan in charge of watering the tomatoes in the lean-to and picking more fruit. I hear she had a good raspberry harvest yesterday, thanks Jan. I'm looking forward to seeing how things have grown-on when I get back tomorrow - it's amazing how much changes in just a few days at this time of year.

 

Thanks for reading this week. I'm linking in with Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres

 

 

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Harvest Monday - berry bonanza featuring raw raspberry tart

Woah, I didn't realise how much I'd picked this week until looking back at the photos, here's a quick run down:

 

The first tomatoes! Earlier in the week my two pots of tumblers started ripening, they turned out to be yellow, cool.

And just today the first red 'uns too (I got all my varieties mixed up, can't remember this one)

Sarnies with my own purple basil

And some more (I'm not very original with the sandwich fillings!)

There were enough yellows to also take some as a snack for lunch on a day out at the weekend too. Although Jan thought they were all for her and I had to rescue some for myself! Hehe. She must have been distracted by the SPOONBILLS (yes!), avocets and marsh harriers we were watching from the hide at NWT Cley Marshes, we'd got the bus there with the wheelchair.

Also the first cucumbers this week (marketmore) from the plot

The courgettes have started to gain apace plus this first patty pan style squash (And another cuke, it will be a little while before there's more cukes though, only just getting more flowers, it's been very dry again and any rain just dries up in the sun or wind)

I love the shape of the patty pans when they're cut up

I went through and picked all of my spring-sown broad beans (Eleanora express), they'd done ok-ish despite the blackfly attack

Yes, I made broad bean and egg stew again...twice! And a pasta thing too. The skins were a little tough, I should really have popped the green innards out but it was too much to faff with at the moment.

Chard...

With quinoa

I had a big bag of pumpkin in the freezer that needed using up. It was from a huge pumpkin that jan's work had carved for an event. The pumpkin itself was a bit flavourless but I made a sort of curry soup with it.

More courgettes, including a round one, first time I've grown these. I've lifted all my onions and have them in the shed on the allotment, but am just bringing a few home every now and then that need using up first.

And yes, the berries through the week have been rather abundant!

Raspberries and saskatoons. The raspberries take ages to pick

And some more. I think I spent an hour and a half just on the raspberries

And some more

And some more (gooseberries) - excuse the bad pic!

And some more

And some more

And for a bit of variety, here's tonight's tea, with courgettes, more pumpkin and my own onions and garlic - we had friends over to pick fruit from the plot beforehand

Quite the haul between us, it's much quicker picking with three people for sure (hi Jen and Phil). I dug up some early potatoes too.

So I thought I'd make Shaheen's raw raspberry mousse tart (I made it last year too) for our pudding. I did make a bit of a boo boo, I wasn't thinking and put the bananas in the freezer with their skins still on. So when I got them out the freezer, of course the skins were frozen on. But I broke them in half (weird experience breaking a frozen banana in half ) and after a little thawing they just popped out the skins, phew.

The finished product! Decorated with redcurrants and blackberries picked tonight, as my raspberries don't look nice enough for a posh topping. Although I think this looks a bit like a spiders face?

And on that note (imagining eating a tasty giant red spider face), I'll link in with Harvest Monday on Daphne's Dandelions. Or alternatively you can imagine me spiking myself in the bottom and ripping my trousers whilst accidentally crouching down on a cane this evening. Ow! Luckily I had a shirt to tie around my waist to hide my modesty!

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Chocolate raspberry brownies...

Courtesy of Shaheen at Allotment2Kitchen

This is recipe enticed me as firstly it looked yummy, secondly, we had guests coming round and thirdly, I have lots of raspberries. I didn't have a full bar of dark chocolate so used up some ends of different bars, 85%, 70% and dark chocolate with espresso that gave it an interesting extra twist.

Choc and frozen rasps

I did accidentally use the wrong sugar (granulated instead of caster) and also used frozen raspberries that I didn't have the patience to defrost properly. This meant that the top took longer to cook and so the bottom was a bit over cooked.

Before cooking

Seemed to go down well with our guests anyway and we had second helpings with ice cream (which was handy as I needed freezer space for homemade tomato sauce base).

After cooking! You can see the granules of sugar...this wouldn't have happened if I'd used caster

So maybe if I do it again I'll either defrost the rasps properly or mix them in throughout? I'm not very good at experimenting with sweets, better to follow the excellent recipe! Savoury food I'm a bit better at going off-piste. Anyway thank you Shaheen for a great recipe. We went out for a trip into the countryside today and the last couple of bits went down a treat.

Linking to August's bookmarked recipes at Tinned Tomatoes

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