It's been a bank holiday today, which means no work and slightly confusing as it really doesn't seem like a Monday. But a nice extra day off. This morning I biked down to whitlingham country park which is only about 10 minutes from the city, to try and see and hear my first swift of the year.....success! A group of around 30 flew in briefly, screaming and feeding high over the water (there's a large lake), fuelling up on insects after a long migration. An added bonus was my first cuckoo of the year too, yippee!
This afternoon I headed to the plot to get a good few hours work in, in the sun, another bonus, with birds singing all around and butterflies and bees flying all over the place. Jobs included weeding the bed where I'm going to plant out the sweetcorn (lots of couch grass), and cutting the grass to use as mulch for my early potatoes - they'd been slightly scorched by frost.
I've had some pretty good harvests this week-
Still lots of over-wintered chard coming, here's some of it
It's gone into noodle soup, .....
...As a side dish with more spicy chick pea pies (I only discovered these last week and I think they will become a regular weekend meal!)
....and with poached eggs on sour dough bread
I also made another nettle soup, this time adding a few chard leaves as well for variety, and some melted blue cheese.
When weeding the bed for the sweetcorn, I found some potatoes I'd missed, how could I have missed these, they were quite big!
I also picked a big batch of perpetual spinach
.... That went into another cauli curry (I've made one every week recently!)
And I thought I'd jump on the rhubarb bandwagon this week too, I have some growing in a large pot in the back garden. I used to have it in the ground at the allotment where it was doing rather too well in the spot where I wanted my saskatoon to go, so brought it home instead
I picked the biggest stems and a few little ones as the leaves were getting in the way
And made a tasty rhubarb and almond cake to take round a friend's house, you can see the recipe here (I found it by googling rhubarb and almond cake and chose the easiest looking recipe, with the ingredients I already had). It had a really good flavour, the consistency was more like a pudding than a cake though, very moist
Well, it's all gone now, anyway!
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Hey, bonus potatoes, that's great! The cake looks very moist. My rhubarb has only started to peak out of the ground in the past week so I've got some time to wait and check out recipes.
ReplyDeleteThanks Susie! I'm sure your rhubarb will be worth the wait :) I think last year I didn't even use any of my rhubarb so thought I'd make an effort this time, especially as it was to take round a friend's house.
DeleteMmm, that cake looks delicious, I'm making a note of the recipe, hopefully my weak allotment rhubarb will put out a few more stems. I've been finding rogue potatoes as well, some really big ones, there are always some left I find. We saw our first swifts of the year yesterday, they're always lovely to watch aren't they, so fast and agile. CJ xx
ReplyDeleteThanks CJ, if you do make it, I'd suggest taking the butter from the fridge several hours before you need it. I left it a bit late and it was difficult to mix in properly but other than that it was pretty straightforward. And tasty!
DeleteYeh, I don't know how it's so easy to miss potatoes when you're digging them out, I found lots of small ones too, I obviously wasn't very thorough!
Yay, I love it when the swifts come back, I went out hoping to see them. It was funny, soon after I first got there I heard, then saw, three and was chuffed with that. But then later heard some, looked up and the sky was full! They didn't hang around though and quickly moved on.
Rhubarb does produce a wet texture but would go well with some custard, yoghurt or cream. We don't see swifts around here but plenty of swallows and house martins. Hearing a cuckoo nowadays is rare too but good news for our dunnock population. The many collared doves try their best to fool us with their coo coo call.
ReplyDeleteHi sue, yep I could see it going well with custard or yogurt (I don't like cream that much though). I don't make puddings very often, too much washing up!
DeleteWow, we get loads of swifts here, it's surprising you don't get any, I guess there's no nesting sites. I see house martins sometimes in the city but have to head out to see swallows.
Ha ha, yep those collared doves can be quite similar but then when you really hear a cuckoo it's 'oh yes, how could I have thought the other one was a cuckoo!' The one I heard was so loud and it carried right across the lake (actually one of the Norfolk Broads).
On the look out for some poor unsuspecting reed warbler I guess.
DeleteProbably, that's nature for you sue. I once saw a mother mallard with only one duckling, and was enjoying seeing it swimming around. The next second it had gone, pulled under water (probably by a pike) and the mother duck was swimming around trying t find it. Very sad!
DeleteWe just have enough rhubarb for a large crumble (my husbands favourite pud!) BUT….. I rather fancy that rhubarb and almond cake…….. perhaps a smaller crumble would suffice??
ReplyDeleteMy chard is just a mere hint of itself, as seedlings in my square foot garden, but coming along they certainly are so hurrah for that! My early potatoes re growing away nicely in their bags - a first for me! Lx
Hi Lynne, he he, it didn't take up too much rhubarb so you might just get the two dishes! I still have two sticks in the fridge I'm wondering what to make with.
DeleteGreat, the chard will hopefully come along quickly, it can be quite prolific once it gets going, just keep picking it, from the outside leaves inwards.
Excellent on the potatoes, a couple of my friends grow them in bags with good success!
The cake looks delicious. I really need to pick some of mine and do something with it. I've been so pressed for time lately though.
ReplyDeleteThanks Daphne, it was a tasty cake for sure. Yeh, I don't often make cakes due to the time and extra washing up!
DeleteI've taken all the chard from the garden yesterday, still deciding what to do with it. My rhubarb is still on the skinny side, but Rhubarb cake it may be when it is harvested.
ReplyDeleteHi Shaheen, yep chard is quite versatile and you're very creative so I can sense some mulling over!
DeleteWell, at least skinny rhubarb is better than no rhubarb :) and several skinny stalks make one big one.
My goodness...all of your meals (and cake!) look so good - you're really making the most of your harvests! This year I have to do a better job at planning meals around what will be ready to pick, instead of trying to figure it out after the fact.
ReplyDeleteThanks Margaret, I tend to make meals that just need one main pan and are quick! And I seem to keep making the same things every week at the moment so not very original.
DeleteThe cake was a bit of an exception though :)
Lovely food pictures! I really like seeing what people make with their home-grown produce. Are you actually cultivating those nettles next to the Rhubarb, or have they just sprung up spontaneously?
ReplyDeleteThanks Mark. Hehe, no the nettles arrived by themselves and I've just left them there, cutting back and composting when they get too big. But this year I did snip a few off to go in the soup (but most of the nettles for soup have come from the allotment). The spot in front of the lean-to is a bit underused really, it's mainly alkanet and nettles that get cut back periodically, plus the rhubarb pot. If I didn't have the allotment I'd probably try and be more productive with the space but the bees like the alkanet and the leaves from it make good mulch (though are hairy which makes your skin itch so you have to wear gloves)
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