This is how my mother describes the excitement of digging for potatoes. Despite having watched the tiny shoots turn into luscious foliage over the last few months, there is always that doubt in the back of your mind that, when you come to dig them up, there might be nothing there after all. So, there was something magical about the moment when I put the fork in the ground and saw the first pale yellow nugget gleaming up at me.
I didn’t gather a huge crop, as many of the potatoes are still tiny, so would benefit from a couple more weeks in the ground. However, I did collect just enough for supper.
We ate them served with butter and mint, lettuce and salmon. Delicious.
Well, in lettuces at least!
And chives, mint and parsley. Not quite enough on their own for a feast, but I did manage to adapt a recipe from Nigella’s ‘Forever Summer’ book to make a meal out of them.
The recipe is for bulgar wheat salad with pink-seared lamb, which Nigella describes as ‘loosely based on tabbouleh’. First boil and drain the bulgar wheat before dressing with olive oil, lime juice and seasoning. Then mix in your coarsely chopped ‘greens’. Nigella uses coriander, mint, spring onions, chilli and diced courgette; I substituted parsley for coriander, chives for spring onions, omitted chilli but added lettuce. Then fry the lamb (loins are a good cut for this) and slice before arranging on top of the rest of the salad. A rather delicious light summer dish.
It was Easter bank holiday when we first planted out the vegetable patch properly. Some garlic had gone in the ground some months earlier, before Christmas, but it was only on 4 April that we sowed the onions, potatoes and rhubarb. It was amazing how quickly they started sprouting, and now, just 6 weeks later, they are really flourishing.
Seizing the opportunity of a beautiful sunny day, we spent the morning planting out some lettuce and parsley baby plants that by mother grew from seed and gave to me in a wooden wine crate a few weeks ago.
…and this time she wasn’t alone. Unfortunately this was the best photo that I was able to get of them, as they didn’t hang around for long. In the few moments that I saw them I had assumed that the one at the back of the photo was a cub, because it was slightly smaller and had a brighter coat than the other fox (which I believe is the same one I photographed in an earlier blog, although hard to be sure).
However, having researched the life cycle of a fox, I’m not sure that’s right. Cubs are apparently born between March and May and then spend about the first 12 weeks of their life dependent on the mother, remaining in the den or very close by. So you wouldn’t expect to see a new season fox out and about until June.
In this helpful website, they mention that although foxes are usually found in monogamous pairs, it is common for urban foxes to have other adults present, in addition to the breeding pair. These additional animals (sometimes called helpers) are subordinate to the dominant pair and are generally the pair’s offspring, which remained with their parents past the normal age of dispersal when the family should break up. So my guess would be, that it is a cub from the previous year, that has remained with its parents through the winter.
Back in August last year I went to visit an old friend who lives in Manchester and we ended up talking about a childhood enthusiasm that I had for keeping caterpillars. When I came down for breakfast the next morning, there was a jam jar on the kitchen table with a hairy black caterpillar in it, which my friend had found in her garden that morning and captured for me. So I put some soil, leaves and twigs in the jar to make him more comfortable and then took him home on the train with me.
Just a couple of days later the caterpillar turned into a chrysalis and burried himself under the soil. Then for months the jam jar just sat on top of the mantelpiece in the sitting room with nothing happening. So it was exciting to wake up this morning and see a beautiful moth had hatched from the chrysalis and climbed onto the wall of the jar.
Back in August I had tried to identifiy the caterpillar. Knowing that hairy caterpillars are usually moths I used the UK Moths website and had thought that it must be a Clouded Buff. However it was obvious from first glance this morning that I must have got it wrong, as the Clouded Buff has red and orange colours and this moth was white with dalmation-like black spots.
Going back to the UK Moths website I was able to identify him as a White Ermine (Spilosoma Lubricipeda) which is apparently widely distributed and fairly common in much of Britiain. But according to the website he shouldn’t have hatched until May or June, so I’m not sure how well he’s going to get on in cold wet February.
As I got him out of the jar this morning and he fell out upside down; I noticed that he has an amazing bright yellow back.
This is a nice dish to take advantage of the last few weeks of the game season. In Winchester farmers market last weekend there was quite a bit of end of season game being sold on the cheap, so I bought a bag of game pie mix and a pheasant. The pheasant is still in the freezer, but I thought I’d make a game pie for supper tonight.
Having not made a pie like this before, I followed a steak and kidney pie recipe and substituted the meat for the game mix. The meat you cook just like a stew first: fry the game and a diced onion in a heavy bottomed pan for a few minutes then add a little flour (to thicken the mix) before covering with some red wine and stock, season and leave to simmer over a low heat for a good couple of hours.
Then make a shortcrust pastry by rubbing 125g of cold butter (cut into small cubes) into 250g plain flour using your finger tips, until it has the appearance of breadcrumbs. Add a couple of tablespoons of cold water and stir with a round bladed knife to bring the pastry together into a ball. Roll it out on a floured surface with a rolling pin until it’s about an inch bigger than the dish your going to make the pie in. Cut around the upturned dish to get the right shape piece of pastry.
Finally, bring it all together by placing the meat mix in an ovenproof dish with a pie bird in the middle to let the steam out when it’s cooking. Then stick strips of pastry (made up of the off cuts) round the edge of the dish, sticking them on with water. Cut a hole in the pastry sheet for the pie bird to come through and place the sheet onto the dish, securing round the edges by pressing with a fork.
Just before it goes in the oven you can decorate it with the remaining pastry offcuts, securing them in place with some beaten egg, then brush beaten egg over the whole of the top of the pie so that it goes a nice colour.
Cook in the oven at 200° for 25-30 minutes and serve!
While it is still a bit early to start putting anything in the ground, it is time to start ‘chitting’ potatoes. By putting seed potatoes in a cool, light position you can encourage them to start developing sprouts (although I’ve always found that if you leave potatoes for long enough in the bottom of the fridge this seems to happen anyway).
Having researched a bit I’m not really sure that there’s that much benefit from chitting them, except perhaps it helps them get going a bit earlier. From what I’ve read, commercial growers don’t bother with this stage and if you buy them later then you can just put them straight in the ground. Still, even if there’s no real benefit to the final potato crop, it is nice to see them sitting on the windowsill every morning; their little sprouts acting as a reminder that spring is on the way.
I think that all the best weekend breakfasts centre around eggs and scrambled eggs on toasted muffins with bacon is probably my favourite of all.
However, it has to be done properly and if the eggs aren’t smooth and creamy then it’s just not the same. Having spent a lot of time attempting to perfect the art of scrambled egg making, I think the most important factor in getting them right is to cook them slowly. It’s fine to start them off quickly, by pouring beaten eggs into a pan of sizzling butter, but as soon as you’ve pulled the first layer of cooked egg that forms off the bottom of the pan, the heat needs to be turned down as low as possible. Often, I even stop them cooking half way through and leave them to stand for a couple of minutes, just to ensure that there’s no chance of them cooking too quickly. I think that this is the secret is to getting really creamy eggs without having to add a drop of cream. In fact, I don’t even add milk to my scrambled eggs – just beaten eggs and a few grinds of black pepper. Another helpful tip that I learnt from Joel Robuchon’s book ‘The Complete Robuchon‘ is to cook scrambled eggs in a frying pan rather than a saucepan.
There’s something about the combination of flavours and textures in this dish that just work perfectly together; rich creamy scrambled eggs balance with the sweetness of the muffins and the salty smokiness of the bacon. A glass of pink grapefruit juice is ideal to serve with it too, as the sharpness cuts through to stop it becoming too rich and allows you to enjoy a nice large plateful!
Many people see them as just a pest, but it was hard to feel that when I woke up this morning to see this lovely creature curled up asleep in the corner of the back garden. He looked very peaceful and in good condition and helpfully looked up at just the right point when I opened the window to take a picture of him. Trying to get a close up was more tricky; although I stalked him quite successfully - getting to within about 5m – as soon as he heard the camera he looked up and saw me then scarpered pretty quick.
These delicious little mouthfuls are very easy to prepare and extremely moorish. They have a lovely combination of flavours, a fruity sweetness from the membrillo (quince paste) that combines brilliantly with the salty umami taste of the prosciutto and goats cheese.
I first came across them in one of my favourite local restaurants, del Parc near Archway north London, which serves modern tapas with a North African twist. Having enjoyed it so much there, when I came across membrillo in the Special Selection fixture in Sainsbury’s I saw the opportunity to recreate it at home. I’ve since found a similar recipe in Nigella’s book Feast, which substitutes membrillo for fig paste, and although I haven’t tried it imagine is equally scrummy.
All you have to do is cut the prosciutto into pieces about an inch wide (or fold in half to get this size if that’s easier), put a dollop of goats cheese (mild and creamy is best so as not to over power the other flavours) and a teaspoonful of membrillo in the middle. Then roll the prosciutto up so that the goats cheese and membrillo create the filling.
You could put a few on a plate with some salad leaves as a starter or just put them all on plate together in the centre of the table, as I did for lunch today, and let people help themselves. And probably fight over the last one!
