Category Archives: Vegetables

Chicken Dinner in the Garden

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Hot summer days in this country are still a big event: precious and usually cherished. We celebrate by putting our thermals away and staying out late and attempting to do what those in hotter climates are born knowing how to do….cook outdoors.

One chicken dinner: four huge pieces of chicken, marinated in lemon, fresh oregano, sweet paprika and a little oil, squeezed onto the rack of our new barbecue, dome popped over the top and cooked in about 45 minutes, served with fresh radishes and spring onions and griddled lettuce, and what look like carrot chopsticks and some other big hunks of salad vegetables. A slice of sourdough, a few new potatoes. That’s about it…

You want a review? Messy, smoky, delicious. Some of the best chicken I have eaten in a long while, the dome kept loads of moisture in the meat, succulent is the word that springs to mind – I could get into this…. :) All tips most welcome to this barbecue beginner!

No pudding, just a wander round the garden looking at the flowers.

Sally’s Griddled Lettuce

We have a few lettuces, just a few, and we weren’t getting through them quickly enough. Then I read Sally BR at Bewitching Kitchen on an intriguing recipe for grilled lettuce. Read her post here.

I have to report that it is the most popular lettuce dish in the house. It was requested again today. So maybe we will get through them all with luck, plus I’m hiding them under my coat and smuggling them out to the neighbours.

On the subject of growing your own; you know, on those gardening programmes, they always talk about sowing little tiny quantities of everything every two weeks, so you have a constant stream of fresh vegetables, does anyone actually manage to do that? We did it last year and found that they all catch each other up anyway, like the No 65 bus from Ealing to Kingston via Richmond.

I just looked it up here to check it still existed, as it’s been a while since I was on it, and am happy to see it behaves the same way as it has done since I was a child. The shape of the bus may have changed over the years, but it is still notorious for its erratic regard for the timetable and its proclivity to travel in a pack with fellow 65s.

But I digress, here are some pictures. So if you’re ever stuck with more lettuce than you know what to do with, what’s the answer? Try this for starters. I made a dressing with creamy home made yoghurt, crushed garlic, olive oil, lemon and fresh mint; everything Sally says about this dish is true! Completely delicious. From ground to plate in ten minutes! Griddled lettuce tastes better than chinese leaves, and almost as delicious as asparagus cooked in the same way. Mmm. Thank you Sally!

Summertime and the Desired Dough Temperature

Here is a ‘quick’ hybrid sourdough/yeast bread that I made today, suffering from low bread baking pressure as I was. It was suddenly hot today, (hotter than Athens) 27°C degrees outside, 24°C in my kitchen which as people who read too many bread books know is a ‘desired dough temperature’ for many breads.

Mixed sourdough starters light rye bread by Joanna @ Zeb Bakes

50 g mature rye starter at about 100 per cent hydration
100 g mature white starter ditto
320 g water at 22 C
50 g dark rye flour
200g strong white flour
250g very strong white flour (high gluten)
a squeeze of agave syrup
1/2 teaspoon instant active yeast

Autolyse for 30 minutes

add

10 g salt

This bread marked a small turning point for me. No book, no recipe, just what I have finally managed to get stuck in my brain as to numbers, it has taken a while….

To print this recipe with suggested timings and oven temperatures click here

I had been feeding my starters for a couple of days and they were never quite ready at the point when I was ready, so this morning I took what I had as above. Mixed them with water, mixed up some flour to match, a squeeze of agave syrup for luck, which we all need, a pinch of yeast because I wanted to bake them before midnight, nearly forgot the salt. I think the autolyse process was designed by someone who forgot the salt, don’t you?

Method once mixed: Leave, neglect, forget, remember, fold, leave, neglect, forget, do the garden, entertain the dogs by throwing squeaky balls into the paddling pool, I do enjoy listening to Zeb blowing bubbles under water and I finally dug out the tulip pots. Brownie point there. Remember the bread again, get it into a square ended 1 kg banneton, leave, neglect, forget. Hastily put oven on, tip dough onto peel, slash, steam oven, put flattened out dough into oven. Sit down in front of oven and stare. And then the miracle of oven spring! Yay! Even this bread came through for me. I love bread so much, a cake wouldn’t have tolerated being treated the way I treated this poor dough today. A nice substantial white loaf with a hint of rye, sourdough tangy, a good crust, not as airy as a full blown nursed, timed and cosseted mulitpli -folded sourdough, but quite frankly I don’t give a damn!

Flush with success, I dashed out into the garden and savaged the rainbow chard which had miraculously survived the winter snow and ice; chopped it up, steamed it lightly and mixed it up with two eggs, a packet of feta cheese, some freshly brewed yoghurt, some chopped garden mint, a twist of black pepper and then wrapped it up in the remainder of the filo pastry which I found in the fridge today, brushed with melted butter, into the oven at 170 ° C till done!

Yum delish with some salad and a chilled glass of organic white – biobon sauvignon blanc from Riverford of which they say

Biobon Sauvigon Blanc, Pays d’Oc, Gérard Bertrand

Next to Sauvignons from more northerly climbs, this is soft, almost creamy but it still has that lively, slightly aromatic quality. Most importantly is that it’s pure and easy to drink, with you instinctively reaching for another glass.

My broadband provider, Virgin Media, and my TV are out of order as I write, so I think it is time for another glass of wine, don’t you? And here four hours later I am connected again. Cheers!

Downstairs meanwhile, the TV and the set top box and the DVD player have decided to stop talking to each other following a visit from a Virgin Media ‘engineer’ the other day. Fortunately they never get their hands on my Mac! Hope you are all having a lovely weekend!