Sunday 23 August 2009

At last - a glut


Just one picking from the greenhouse! So many different colours, shapes and sizes - black, white, red, beefsteak, plum, round, cherry. Although, the cherries never make it into the kitchen - they are gobbled up straight from the vine (usually by a small fair haired blue eyed boy).

These beauties were made into Roasted Tomato Passata - unbelievably easy recipe courtesy of the River Cottage Preserves book. Made with 2kg tomatoes.

Half tomatoes and place cut side up in a single layer (yeah - ok we all know how to roast tomatoes!)
Thinly slice 500g shallots and sprinkle over toms, along with 4 chopped cloves garlic
Add a bunch of herbs - basil, oregano, rosemary - whatever you like. I have used marjoram as it was growing handily in a pot outside the kitchen window.
Season with salt and pepper and then drizzle with olive oil.
Roast until soft.

Press tomatoes through a sieve or mouli.
Bring the puree to the boil in a pan.


Sterilise your preserving jars and rings. (I needed 3 500ml parfait jars.)
Pour the hot puree into the warm jars and seal.
Put jars into a large pan, with a folded tea towel on the bottom, and cover with warm water.
Bring to a slow simmer and then simmer for a further ten minutes.
Cool and check seal. They will keep for year apparently.

A very tasty sauce and easy enough to fit in round other cooking type stuff. I will certainly manage to make several batches of this before the end of the season. Gluts are great!


And of course - what sort of gardening blog would this be without the obligatory novelty shaped fruit?

Sunday 9 August 2009

Chard beauty



A quick post to show off this gorgeous yellow stemmed chard. It is glowing!

Friday 7 August 2009

Harvesting today...

Somewhere near the beginning of this blog, in the depths of Winter, I posted about planting this garlic. Here is the wonderful result of that day. (Well, actually, I have been pulling bulbs as and when I needed them for about a month now, so there were even more of them.)



Shallots hung up on the washing line to be dried in the sun.



And last but not least, the onions - looking pretty good to me.


Tuesday 4 August 2009

A tale of two gardens




We've been busy harvesting our garden produce lately- and very tasty it has been too. James has enjoyed getting involved in this job, but seems to forget that we are picking the vegetables for the kitchen - most of his basket just gets eaten as he goes. Well it couldn't be any fresher than that!
.Gran and Papa have gone to Canada for 6 weeks, to visit my sister and her family, so we are looking after the greenhouse. James is very good at wielding the hose, but don't tell Papa that we let his cucumbers wilt!

Of course the best thing about two gardens is - double tomatoes :)

Saturday 1 August 2009

More tomato love


Today we sampled out first Sioux tomato. This was a gloriously red medium - large sized tom with a beefsteak shape about it. It was the most tomatoey tasting tomato I have had for years - truly delicious and definitely one I will be growing again next year.
There was a bit more competition to taste this one, as Dad was around too, but it certainly passed the James test with flying colours.

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