Interesting things to do with a glut of cauliflowers

What to do with a glut of cauliflowers

Having just returned from my plot with a bagful of cauliflowers, I am pondering the wisdom of growing them. Today, I have brought five home, to add to the four I have left from harvesting a couple of days ago. Several more are starting to head up and will be ready in two or three days. Fortunately, a neighbour arrived as I was packing up and I was able to convince her she really wanted a couple for dinner. They are not huge. Cauliflowers require a lot of water when their heads start to bulk up. We have had so little rain over the last 6 weeks that, by the time I have watered my polytunnel and outside seedbeds, I really don’t have the energy to carry a dozen or more buckets of water to the cauliflower patch. For me, water has to be carried in watering cans or buckets a significant distance.

I do love fresh cauliflower and home-grown ones taste so much better than those tired and very expensive ones we can buy in the shops. But! They take up a lot of space on the plot for quite a long time, 8 – 12 months for most varieties. Already, I’m becoming impatient with them, as I need the space for other crops. Unfortunately, when they are ready to crop, they all seem to come ready in the space of  7 – 10 days.

The saving grace is that there is so much you can do with them – not just make friends with your neighbours and earn brownie points with your friends by sharing them. You can freeze cauliflower but, personally, I don’t like it frozen. There are so many dishes you can make from them or they can be included in.

·         Cauliflower with cheese sauce (vary it by having parsley sauce instead, fewer calories!)

·         Cauliflower pakoras – yummy!

·         Piccalilli – mixed vegetable mustard pickle

·         Curried cauliflower – on its own or with potatoes or other vegetables

·         Cauliflower soup

·         Cauliflower potato bake

·         Vegetable lasagne

·         Vegetable cottage pie

·         Pickled cauliflower

·         Cauliflower and potato mash

Just a couple of recipes:-

Piccalilli – the Queen of pickles

If you like pickles this is definitely the most popular one – and how excellent for using the glut of different vegetables.  You will need a good selection but, use what you have on the allotment, try to avoid going to the shops for what you feel might be missing.( tender young runner beans and French beans, young marrow or courgettes, green tomatoes ( though I haven’t tried these in piccalilli), small cucumber, cauliflower, small onions or shallots( if the shallots are too large you will need to cut then in ½s or ¼s).

This recipe might seem like a lot of effort, but it is so worth the trouble

You will need a brine ( salt and water)solution – allow 50g(2oz) for each 600ml(1 pint) water. Ensure the salt is completely dissolved. You will need sufficient brine to cover the vegetables in a basin.

Increase or decrease the following ingredients in proportion according to what you have available:

900g ( 2 lb) mixed vegetables                          Brine – enough to cover the vegetables

Spiced vinegar: - for this quantity allow approx 600ml or 1 pt spiced vinegar

Use preferably white vinegar. Ordinary brown vinegar, although fine for flavour and cheaper, will affect the colour of your pickle. Simmer the vinegar with a selection of spices of your choice ( eg. mixed pepper corns, pimento, whole coriander, dried red chillies, a few bay leaves, mustard seeds, etc). Simmer -  ( gently) the spices in the vinegar for 15 minutes or so, then strain.

Sauce: -

25g/ 1 oz plain flour                                         1 tblsp.  Mustard powder

½ tblsp turmeric                                               2 tsp. Ground ginger

Vinegar to mix                                                   600ml / 1 pint spiced vinegar ( as above)

1.       Prepare the vegetables                ( cut into small pieces, about 1-1.5cm, ½inch size), weigh them – so you know how much sauce to prepare and put into the prepared brine solution – leave for 24 hours.

2.       Prepare the sauce – mix the flour, mustard powder, turmeric and mixing vinegar in a large basin, to make a soft paste. Gradually add the strained spiced vinegar, stirring frequently to ensure there are no lumps.

3.       Return the sauce mix to a large saucepan or preserving pan and simmer over a low heat until it coats the back of a wooden spoon ( reasonably  thickly). Stir frequently to ensure there are no lumps.

4.       Drain the vegetables well, but don’t rinse in cold water.

5.       Add the vegetable to the mustard sauce and gradually bring to the boil

6.       Boil for about 1 -2 minutes ( avoid cooking the vegetables)

7.       Pour/spoon into hot, sterilised jars and seal.

8.       Leave for a few weeks before eating to allow it to mature           

Pakoras

Although you can use a tempura batter, I do prefer the sublime spicy batter of Indian cooking – higher calorie perhaps but, so delicious.

You can use potatoes, cauliflower florets, mushrooms, onions, carrots, etc

For the batter:-  100gm( 4oz) gram flour / besan flour

                           2 tsp ground cumin (jeera)

                           3 tsp ground coriander (dhania)

                           ½ tsp chilli powder

                           ½  tsp turmeric

                           ½  tsp salt

                           ¼  tsp baking soda( bicarbonate of soda)

                           Water to mix

                           Oil for frying

                          200ml water approx.

·         Mix the flour, salt, spices and baking soda in a bowl

Vegetables:     wash - potatoes – peel and cut into slices; cauliflower – cut into smallish florets; mushrooms - cut in half; peel and cut into rings; carrots – peel and cut into batons or rings.

·         Add the prepared vegetables and the water and mix until the vegetables are coated generously with the batter( ensuring there are no pockets of dry ingredients and that all parts of the vegetables are covered)

·         Add the coated vegetables to preheated oil in a deep-fat fryer or wok. If using a deep-fat fryer, don’t use the basket as the batter will attach to the wire.

·         Turn the pakoras over as necessary

·         Fry until the pakoras are evenly brown, then remove from the pan and drain.

Serve with a suitable dipping sauce - total bliss!

If you would like recipes for any other dish suggestions listed here, do get back to me.

                               

Success with growing culinary herbs - annuals

Growing herbs for Culinary Use

 I would not begin to involve myself in the medicinal uses of herbs. Although I grow and have grown herbs for many years, I know that growing them for medicinal purposes requires a knowledge which is beyond mine. This can be a potentially dangerous use of these plants. Please use with care. That said - what a huge and hugely interesting subject this is.

Herbs ( as with all plants)can be annual, biennial or perennial.

Annual plants – grown from seed, through flowering to seed in one season – then die. (borage, dill, coriander, cilantro, basil, rocket, mustard, summer savory)

Biennial plants - grown from seed and produce leaves in one year but, flower and produce seeds in the following year – then they die.  Best examples- all varieties of parsley, ( moss curled, Italian flat leaved and turnip rooted or Hamburg); chervil, caraway; rhubarb chard, celery leaf, clary sage.

Perennial plants – Can be grown from seed, from runners, from layering or from cuttings. The range is vast but, my favourites are thyme, sage, rosemary, bay, oregano/marjoram, rosemary, tarragon, mint, lavender and many more

The subject is too wide to cover in one Blog, even covering just culinary herbs. For that reason, in this article I will talk about the annual herbs I grow and use.

I only grow herbs I like to eat though I do like to add something new to my list each year.

Basil - a wonderful annual herb and what an enormous range of different basils is available. This year I’m growing Gecofure, Red basil, Sweet basil and Minette, plus one other which was given to me as a present with un-named packets of seeds and some cute little pots. Basil can be germinated and grown for culinary use all year round but, it can also be very tricky. It doesn't like conditions to be too wet or too warm. Not too cool either. It germinates easily but can suffer from 'damping off' - a fungal disease which will destroy your crop overnight.. It doesn't like its roots disturbed so best not to transplant. That said it grows easily on the window-sill - try sowing successionally - every 3 to 4 weeks. Just eat it as it comes ready. I have tried to grow it outdoors but have not found it particularly successful in our climate. I like the herb best served chopped or shredded in salads, especially with tomatoes. If you are planning to use it in hot dishes it is best to add at the last moment before serving.

Coriander - what a wonderful herb -or spice – depending on which part of the plant you are using. In the UK coriander will run almost straight away to seed. This is great if that is what you want - watch out for fungi / moulds on the seeds in a damp year and do harvest them when ready or they will re-seed the plot. The seeds dry and store well and I always aim to have enough to last me until next season’s crop. Coriander is one of the basic spices in Asian cooking and as a dedicated fan of Asian food I do use a lot of it. Freshly crushed or finely ground spice is so much more aromatic and zestful than bought ones. It is easy to germinate and grow. Sow in drills in well prepared soil any time now. As I am growing 3 different types of coriander this year I’m growing two varieties in drills and the third scatter sown on a flower bed.

Cilantro -If you want to grow coriander for the leaves, use Cilantro (I have bought my seed from Dobies but, many seed companies will have this herb) I have not tried it before having tried, unsuccessfully, for years to grow coriander for its leaf. I only realised recently that it is, although still coriander, a different variety. Actually, I have only seen it for sale as Cilantro this year. Cilantro is an indispensible ingredient in Mexican, Peruvian, Caribbean and Asian cooking. Use it fresh as long as possible but, it does freeze quite well. I chop it coarsely and pack into freezer boxes. Although it does lose some of its flavour when frozen, it is then available to add to dishes all year round.

Watercress – although it is not an annual herb (it is in fact a perennial). Try growing watercress as an annual herb and as a delicious, spicy, peppery addition to soups, salads, etc. It is a member of the brassica family – like cabbages, sprouts, broccoli, etc. You can buy seeds and grow in a large pot of compost. As it is really a water growing plant, it  doesn’t like drying out. Last year I grew it in a tub of wet compost set into another tub of water. It grew magnificently. It does become quite ‘leggy’ after a few weeks. Just break off shoots with roots attached and replant in fresh compost. Actually, last year, that is how I started my watercress crop. I bought a packet of watercress from a supermarket, soaked the best shoots on a jar of water for a few days until the roots had formed, then planted. This year I will start the same process again. It has the advantage of growing at my back door so I can just nip out and pick it when I want to use it. It will grow equally well on an apartment block balcony.

Other useful annual herbs which are easy to grow in our climate – Mizuna, mustard and rocket can be sown outdoors successionally as excellent salad greens. They can be grown on a well prepared bed, in pots and window boxes and are excellent as cut-and-come-again crops. They are often available in packets of mixed salads seeds. Try Marshalls Seeds, they have a good range of these.

A Gourmet Visit to London

Visiting London

I have just come back from a most enjoyable weekend in London and what an exciting ‘foodie’ place London has become.

Borough Market is a must for anyone interested in food. The market is open on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, all year round, probably missing out Christmas Day. It is open at different times on each of these days so, do check the times before you go. There are stalls offering a wide and often exotic range fruit and vegetables, a wonderful selection of cheeses, meat, fish, bakery, patisserie and confectionary produce and of course, delicious and irresistible cooked foods. As well as traditional British food there is also a magnificent array of foods from around the world.

The market can be quite busy, it is now on the tourist trail and many people go just to experience the atmosphere or sample some of the tempting dishes available. It is a little pricey but, is worth it for the quality and freshness of the produce.

The best time to go is probably around lunchtime. Try out one of the many restaurants, cafes and bars in the area as well.

The market is in Borough High Street, Camberwell, London SE1 and the closest tube (underground) station is London Bridge. Google the market or check it out on www.boroughmarket.org.uk

The market is close to the River Thames – an area well worth wandering around for its vibrant atmosphere. Southwark Cathedral is worth a look. It’s difficult to beat getting a big, fresh sandwich in the market and sitting in the grounds watching the world go by. A replica of Sir Francis Drake’s ship, the Golden Hinde, is docked there. Not the original ship and not a working ship, but it has been set up as a museum and as the original would have been. I didn’t go on board but, I’ve been told it’s a jolly experience.

The highlight of the weekend was definitely Colombia Road Flower Market. Situated in Shoreditch, in the borough of Tower Hamlets London E2, it is a street market happening every Sunday (Christmas day excepted). It starts at 8am and finishes around 3pm. Like all events like this, it is worth getting there early, especially if you are driving. It is possible to park but, do park legally, fines for illegal parking are quite steep. The nearest tube/underground station is Old Street. You will have to walk from there.  There is also a good bus service and lots of taxis cruising around the area.

The market sells cut flowers – masses of them, container grown flowers, bushes, shrubs, trees and stunning orchids – definitely the flower of the moment. Several of the stalls provide an astonishing range of herbs and olive trees of all shapes and sizes – these just have to be the most popular trees. If you are looking for fruit to grow, there was an excellent selection of potted strawberry plants and raspberry canes. It is hard to walk away from the stalls empty handed. Most of the prices are well below those you would pay in a garden centre. The main disadvantage of buying the produce is that it has to be carried home and the staggering number of people crushed into such a small space does take some of the enjoyment from the experience.

After spending a couple of hours struggling our passage through the crowds and visiting as many stalls as we could find a tiny space to edge into, we were hot, dishevelled, thirsty and really quite peckish. We joined a short queue for a very busy little restaurant – Laxeira, Restaurante Espanol. (check it out at www.laxeior.co.uk )We had a scrumptious selection of tapas served in a clean friendly environment and it was really not expensive.

If you do visit London try a trip on a Thames Clipper. A very speedy method of travelling in London, the boats navigate between North Greenwich pier (at the O2 Arena) and the London Eye. It isn’t the cheapest way of travelling around London but it really must be the most interesting and exhilarating. If you visit London regularly, it is probably worth purchasing an Oyster Card. They can now be used on all types of public transport in and around London and is so much cheaper.

soft fruit - raspberries, strawberries: bush fruit - blackcurrants, redcurrants, gooseberries

Soft and Bush Fruit

All the fruit is magnificent, so far, this spring. The plum tree is flowering and already dropping its petals – my favourite, Victoria,(suitable for eating, for desserts and for preserves). My pear tree, which I almost killed last year is covered with flowers, (this tree, planted two years ago, was also covered with bloom last year at this time but, then failed to thrive. This surprised me as the other fruit trees in the same area were growing well. A neighbour pointed out to me that, perhaps, just maybe – the mint which surrounded the pear tree, was a metre high and very lush , might possibly be taking all the nutrients and water from the tree. Of course he was right but, what a shame to have to dig out all that wonderful mint – and the bees were loving it. Still, the pear tree came first. It did recover, just, and this year I will make sure the mint doesn’t make such an extravagant takeover manoeuvre. I am not any sort of expert on tree fruit having started with them only 2 years ago.

Strawberry plants, now tidied, have already got their flowers on. I have two beds (1 is now on its third year and will be dug out this autumn. The other is two years old this year and can stay for another year. I will plant another bed from runners in the autumn). I do prefer the fruit from the first year plants – they are usually huge and juicy though there are fewer of them. With each year, it seems they get smaller but, more plentiful. I plant my new runners in beds covered with porous woven matting – approx, 2 metres by 4 metres. This keeps the weeds under control and the strawberries out of the mud. To some extent it also keep slugs away as the area around the plants stays fairly dry. The disadvantage is that in years where there is not much rain, the ground can become quite dry but, even last year when there was little rain in the strawberry season, I still had an excellent crop – far too many for me to use(and they don’t freeze well). I don’t cover with net to keep birds off. I hate to see the birds caught under the net and there really are enough for them and for me. It does annoy me slightly that the blackbirds like to take a bite out of several fruits until they find the sweetest but.....!

Blackcurrants, redcurrants and gooseberries have their flower-buds opening now. Although it is important that the bees get in to pollinate the flowers, you will need to keep an eye on these when they start to ripen. Birds will not share them with you. My experience has been that pigeons and blackbirds will strip the bushes before you have a chance to pick, so – do net them- the bushes, not the birds! Pigeons are really quite clever and can find a way into the most ‘secure’ of cages. However, much as I don’t really want to share these with the enormous flocks of greedy pigeons, neither do I want to see them being caught under netting they can’t escape from. Prey to cats and foxes – I love cats and foxes, I just don’t want to catch their lunch for them.

Many of my blackcurrant plants have ‘bigbud’. You can see these enlarged leafbuds in spring, which fail to develop into fruiting stems. When I took over my plot, a few years ago, I dutifully cut out all the branches showing ‘bigbud’ and burned them (it is caused by a mite/bug, which lives in the new shoot and prevents it from developing). A neighbour asked me what I was doing. When I explained, he laughed and said that, on the allotments, ‘bigbug’ was endemic. There was no point in trying to get rid of it. Since then, I just let the bushes ‘get on with it’. I might consider replacing a few of them with modern varieties which have bigger fruit – perhaps next winter. The smaller fruited varieties - about half of the bushes I've inherited - are a nuisance to harvest unless you are desperately keen on blackcurrants. My one redcurrant bush is a real star. I discovered it under 2 metres high, of briars when I took over the plot. It provides me with a bucketful of fruit each year. I have pruned half of it out each year. Last year, it was so overladen with fruit that a couple of large branches collapsed. However, it is a wonderful amazing bush. I am in the process of taking layered cuttings from it :o) I do  however, give it a good mulching of well rotted manure each year,as with the other bush and cane fruit.

You don’t have to spend a lot of money building professional cages. I use tree posts hammered into the ground leaving about 1 and half metres above ground (it is helpful if you can actually get inside the ‘cage’ comfortably to harvest). Cover the tops of the posts with plastic bottles to prevent the posts cutting through the netting. Pin the net down with large ‘staples’ or pegs. Leave a largish hole high up for birds to escape but not suitable for access. And, hey! I don’t get it right all the time – I’m working on this. Last year, one of my cages was a mass of pale grey feathers when I arrived. I'm assuming that a fox found the same way in as a pigeon. No cat nor other bird could have produced the feathery devastation presented.

Raspberries – now this is a plant I am curious about! And I would be really, really happy for someone to enlighten me. The accepted practise, where I live, is for the previous year’s productive raspberry canes to be cut back to the ground, leaving about 3ins(6-7cm) above ground, either in the autumn or spring. It is understood that raspberries fruit on the new season’s canes – now appearing above ground. However, in my experience, last year’s canes will also fruit this year – the flower buds are now appearing on last year’s canes. They will produce a crop May/June, before the new canes start to crop. This extends the harvesting season from May to October (depending on your varieties). My plants are not suffering from this extra crop – the canes grow to 6ft ( 2 metres) or more and are very productive. I do cut the tops off the ‘old’ canes in the autumn - more for the sake of tidiness – to about 1 metre high. It really isn't necessary to 'cage' raspberries. Although birds may take a few, bigger threats are ants and woodlice - they will destroy the fruit and the ants will sting - very nasty!

If anyone can give me their thoughts on why they are cut back before their time, I would really like to hear it. Do give your raspberry canes a good mulch of manure each autumn. If they are not productive or have very small fruit, think about replacing them. New varieties are really quite superior. Try a mixture of summer and autumn fruiting.