Category Archives: Garden

Mostly garden pictures and maybe the odd poodle

Can you freeze a yoghurt starter?

 

The things you forget you planted

 

Saffron crocus makes a surprise appearance in the bottom of a planter this weekend. Thought you might like to see its long red stamens!

And the answer to the question?  YES!

I successfully unfroze a couple of tablespoons of matsoni culture yoghurt that had been in the freezer for two months and made a fresh pot of yoghurt with it yesterday. Worth knowing if you go wild and get lots of cultures from a supplier to try out and are swamped with yoghurt, or if you are going away and want to wind down the yoghurt making for a while. I don’t know if you can do the same for kefir? I want to try that sometime and if you could freeze it, then I would certainly get some. There is only so much yoghurt you can keep going in a small household!

Here and here are a couple of links to earlier posts about making yoghurt in case you want some tips.

Back to the Garden – Mid August

This robin has worked really hard all summer and apparently it’s quite normal to look like this during the moulting season.

The bird has probably been involved in some territorial fighting; it’s very common for robins to pull out each others’  head feathers; these should regrow once the moult is complete. She is friendly and inquisitive (the bird watcher’s term for this is ‘confiding’)  and is a great observer of humankind, knowing when the feeders are being filled up and will come to Brian’s hand for scraps.

On one of our recent hot days I was trying to wash something down outside and she flew over and dashed through the spray from the hose. I stopped what I was doing and gazed after her.

She sat in this tree and dipped and bobbed her head at me.

I thought for a moment, then I pressed the trigger of the hose again and arced the water in a fine mist as before; she flew straight back through the spray. She did this several times before flying off to sit in the ivy.

One of my precious Brown Turkey figs

The ornamental vine produces some surprisingly realistic grapes!

The Family Apple tree (three grafts one root stock) is bowed down to the ground with fruit

Maureen’s cucumber plant gift

First crop of pears in five years – not ripe yet

The raised bed looks a little wild and unruly now

It’s a jungle down under the apple tree, a long forgotten perennial sweet pea has appeared

I let the artichoke flower this year, it’s the only one left, the others didn’t make it through the winter

The weather changes yet again….

A third portion of purple prose – dwarf beans

I could eat these every day/I am eating these every day

This is the only shot I have of the bean dish we have been having night after night the last two weeks. We are coming to the end of them now, they were so pretty when they were in flower and we got loads of them this year. We’ve put some more in the ground and are crossing our green fingers that they will give us a late crop in a couple of months time.

I was given a copy of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s River Cottage Everyday as a present by my lovely friend Mandy, and on my first gallop through it, I came to a halt when I saw this bean dish. Because I am too lazy to go downstairs and drag the book back up here I will give you the general gist of it. Because that is what it is, a general gist of a recipe, more a technique than anything, which you can vary as you please with what you like.

Before cooking they look like this!

Catch your beans, or your carrots, or whatever, cook them lightly with steam so they are cooked but not floppy. If you like garlic, splat and finely chop a clove or two. While the beans are cooking, put a mixture of your favourite seeds and spices in a dry frying pan, throw in some flaked almonds maybe, some pumpkin seeds, coriander, fennel, a pinch of chili, sesame seeds if you are Brian. Get those seeds and little packets out of the cupboard. (Oh yes,  I heard you Michael McIntyre!  Goulash next week….) Heat them up till the almonds start to colour and go brown and the seeds begin to pop a little.

Turn the heat off and then add a Keith Floyd sort of splosh of olive or walnut oil, and the chopped garlic. Give it all a good shuffle in the pan. Don’t turn the heat on again; there will be enough heat in the pan to lightly cook the garlic.  Drain the beans, carrots, whatever veg you are using. Put in a serving bowl,  sprinkle with flaky Maldon sea salt, black pepper, and tip the sizzling,  toasty, and aromatically charged seedy loveliness all over the beans. So good!    Serve with couscous or rice or whatever else is on your table. I suspect that kids won’t eat this with their aversion to bits, but that means all the more for you!   Now I want some more all over again!

Normal bread service will be resumed soon.