Pierogi Ruski

This years potato crop seems to be good for mashing. So I decided to make Pierogi Ruski. I've never made them before and they turned out tasty but more like a pasty than the softer pierogi I have had in Poland. The recipe says to bake them but next time I might try frying them or steaming them to see if that is how to keep them soft.

The white plate didn't help me to photograph these well unfortunately.

the recipe is from Anna's Kitchen.

This is it: Filling: 1.4kg bolied potaotes.
Mash them up with 5-6 tablespoons of pureed cottage cheese.

In a pan, melt 1 tablespoon of butter then fry 1 very finely chopped medium onion until it is starting to turn golden.
Add the potatoes to the pan and cook (stirring constantly ) over a medium heat until the potatoes are thick. Leave to chill for an hour or two.

Pastry: The recipe is for 40-50 pierogi with three fillings. As I only made one filling I only made a third of this amount but this is the recipe as listed. 400g flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 225g butter (cubed) 225g cream cheese (cubed ish) Process briefly until texture is even.

Add 60ml chilled double cream (I used soured cream because I had some left over) and process again until he pastry forms a ball. Chill for at least 30mins.

Roll out pastry, cut into circle, put blob of mash in middle and fold over. pierce hole in the top and spread with egg wash (yolk and water)

arrange on a buttered baking sheet and bake at 190C for 15-20 mins until the are golden brown. But like I said next time I'm going to try frying or steaming.

White Bean and Potato Stew

Here are some lovely potatoes that I grew all by my very self.


and here is the delicious white bean and potato stew/soup that I made with them. The bread on the side is Malted Pumpkin Seed from Tapa and is my new favourite. http://www.tapabakehouse.com/bakery/index.php

The Soup is from 'From Anna's Kitchen' a great book for vegetarian home cooking.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Annas-Kitchen-Vegetarian-Penguin-Cookery/dp/0140469613

it's a tasty, herby bowl of yumminess. Light enough for summer but warming for a winter meal.

Broad Bean Burgers.

I have loads of wonderful broad beans now.

I also have baby potatoes.

These are two of the ingredients needed for Broad Bean Burgers. http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2007/sep/01/foodanddrink.recipes1

So that was last night's dinner and today's lunch. Somehow I remember really enjoying them when I made them last year but they didn't seem quite so good this time.

Broad Bean Burgers

plant partners

A work collegue told me that the best place to plant beetroot is in soil that you've just dug potatoes out of. I've just dug up some potatoes so I thought I'd give it a go.

Multi Vegetable Paella.

Yesterday I picked these delicious Broad Beans and
put them in a multi vegetable Paella.
It's a truly delicious recipe. Last time I made it was for Hogmanay at the request of my lover who says this is his favourite.
In the winter I made it with frozen broad beans which tasted fine but the freshly picked beans are so sweet and lovely.

This is the recipe http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/apr/12/foodanddrink.recipe

and I think that mine looked just as good. 

Finally something to eat.

It's been a slow year, not just for me it would seem and a poor year to start blogging about my growing escapades.

Today I dug up and ate some potatoes (quite plain, I cooked them in the oven with a little olive oil and seasoning and ate them with humous) Tasty but simple.

I have broad beans now too. Not quite ready to pick but almost. yipee!!

Disappointment

Nothing much has been going on in the plot for about a good few weeks. I think it must be the weather. The plants look healthy enough but just don't seem to eve get any bigger.

While the broad beans are nice and healthy and big looking there is no sign of any actual beans. The nasturtiums have no actual flowers.

and the other beans are doing absolutely nothing.

Courgettes take two.

All of the courgettes that I planted a couple of weeks ago have disappeared now I planted this new one out today. It's covered by a bottle due to the plastic domes having blown away.


Despite all the rain we've had the ground is really dry, which I think must be due to the wind that's been blowing so fiercely. The plants are not growing very quickly at all. No sign of all those beans!

I have a few little Purple Sprouting broccoli seedlings showing through now though. Last time I tried growing them they got  eaten by pigeons so today I built this age over them to stop the birds getting in.  This is the kind of task that I hate doing though. Digging and weeding I much prefer.

wind damage

The recent crazy weather hasn't done as much damage as I had feared. Some of the broad bean plants have taken a battering and all the domes from the courgettes have gone along with two out of four courgette plant. That was more likely to have been something eating them than the wind though.

I planted courgettes today.

I've put them inside these little bubbles just now because the walk to the allotment from my flat seemed to have made them go a bit droopy. The bubbles should give them some protection till they get stronger.

I should have taken a more close up picture so that the messy grassy bit wasn't seen.

But  it looked much worse when I started today and I've decided to approach this section in stripes. Clearing just one bit at a time. The next bit will be a path then more courgettes then, path, pumpkins etc.


Other things are looking spiffing too.

potatoes

Purple Sprouting Broccoli

Broad Beans

nasturtiums

 

 

 

 

 

A hard Working Weekend.

It took me all weekend (including a few beer breaks in the hot sun) to turn this weedy grassy patch into a not quite entirely weed free but significantly less so patch.

I raked it twice but there are still some lumps - I feel a bit like a pregnant lady who didn't take folic acid before the pregnancy and am worried that I may not have given the beans (more french and some Borlotti - my first time for each) the best start in life.

It was really too hot up there for this kind of hard work and no I'm left with a patch about three times bigger than this one in the same condition to deal with before I can plant the courgettes out.

Just now though I'm feeling quite proud of my hard work and hoping that some beans manage to get through.

Excitingly the other plants are all starting to show now. This weekend was the first signs of Purple sprouting broccoli and Brussels sprouts (they look the same just now) and the potatoes.

 It's been windy which is where all the other weird bits have blown in from.

I sieved some compost and planted a bag or rocket seeds.

The allotment was infested this weekend by these guys

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/species-of-the-day/scientific-advances/industry/bibio-marci/index.html loads and loads and loads of them. I'm glad they only live two weeks. 

What I did today. 30th April 2011.

I planted dwarf green beans today. There are still loads left to plant though, If they are all successful there will be beans coming out of mine and Lyle's ears. I'm going to try my hand a Borlotti beans too. The rest of the beans will be going in this bit. Before and after shots from today's work. I had planned to get the whole patch prepped but I got freaked out around 6pm that I was the only person left on the allotments. Turned out there was a few folks but just all down the other end.
This is what removing three barrow loads of weeds gives you. I reckon another three to go then it gets beaned up.

Baby Plants

The first courgette seedling is showing. Another is on it's way but not visible enough for my camera yet. It's so exciting seeing the wee little things appear. All brave and ready to face the world.

Rhubarb Crumble

It was pretty underwhelming. Crumble not buttery enough, not enough sugar on the rhubarb but, it is the first thing from the plot that I have eaten this year so that deserves a post.

April 17th in the allotment

Last weekend, when I was putting in some work on my allotment I was thinking that I should take more photos of it so that I can really see the changes that happen from week to week and year to year.

I guess I should have started earlier in the year when I hadn't yet done anything but I'm starting today instead.

So number one thing is 4 courgette plants that I planted  yesterday in the bathroom. In the bathroom because that is where the most space is.

I'm planting both my summer squashes and winter squashes inside and will plant out when they are established.

I'm doing them in sets of 4 because I only have three domes to keep them covered for the first week or two when they go outside. These seeds should have been planted last year so I expect that they will not all be a success.

This bit, its quite obvious, I have yet to do anything with this year. I planted the early things in the bits of land that were easy to manage so that I feel like I have already done quite a bit before I tackle these horrible bits.

The whole plot used to be grassy and weedy like this but I've been putting in raised beds and they have made a world of difference. So much easier to work with.




I can't really take any credit for this rhubarb, it just grows by itself. But it's looking especially good just now and I brought some home to make a crumble with tonight.

These Broad Beans are the only plants that are showing much so far. They are growing in the new raised bed kit that I built up this year.

They grew last year in the first raised bed that I put in, and did really well, it was the best crop I  have ever had. In order to manage my crop rotation system I'm putting Broad Beans in each years new bed and they'll be followed round by the crops based on the order that I built the beds. So this one will have radishes and beetroots next year because that's what I'll be planting in the other bed this year. These are growing in my home made compost. I didn't sieve it though so it has got a few lumps in it and some of the compostable bags that I use have not quite composted yet.  A peach pit and an avocado stone have also been spotted.

This is a before and after shot of what I did today. The Broad Beans are to the right of the picture and I planted nasturtiums to the left. They are best pals as the black fly that attack the Broad Beans prefer the nasturtiums.

Bees love the nasturtiums too and I love listening to the sound of them droning away on a summers day. When I was digging and clearing this today I removed some planks that were at the side and found a poor  frog or toad squashed between two planks. I think it might be my fault and I feel a bit sick about it. It looked pretty freshly squashed and when I moved the planks lots of flies appeared. Poor thing!

Here you can see the offending planks at the back and this section to the left before I dug and weeded it today.

To the right is going to be my bean patch. Sweet Peas planted so far and no sign of them yet. I'm going to plant dwarf green beans and borlotti beans here too. I'll nee to put in some netting for them to cling to.

Radishes. They are just starting to show. This whole bed wont just be full of radishes. I'll be planting beetroot in one side and radishes in the other half once it's time for the beetroot to go in. I've got more radishes to plant still because I didn't want loads and loads of them all to be ready at the same time.

 The radishes are in the bed at the front in this picture.

The middle bed has purple sprouting broccoli planted to the right of the cane and Brussels sprouts went in today to the left of the cane. I'll need to put some netting over this because last time I tried to grow either of these crops the pesky birds ate the all.

The back bed in this picture is potatoes (Charlotte)

Potatoes!! In the stupid big raised bed. Our allotment zealot built this for me while I was on holiday last year. He had offered to put in some paths for me which was great and has been really helpful but he also took it upon himself to build this for me. It's too big, I have to climb in to it to dig it which does defeat the purpose of a raised bed to some extent.
       He also took it upon himself to plant seeds in my plot last year. Anyway, I'm probably going to pull this down next year and he seems to have moved on to 'helping' my new neighbour.

More

I forgot to say that I've been thinking about potential alternatives to 'Renegade Links'.

A synonym of 'renegade' would be 'maverick'.  With some contorsion of 'maverick' and 'link' we form the new compound word 'maverlink'.  

The definition could be as follows:

MAVERLINK (mav-er-link) n. A link which does not fit into any pre-existing designation, a connection between two digital portals pertaining to a unique ideology or view.

If minimalism has taught us anything it's the maxim 'less is more' and with this in mind surely 'maverlinks' is more compact, more modern, more punchy, than a cumbersome two word heading.

D.

Do you think he knows how funny he is? I can't decide if some of it is purely accidental.

I'd like to introduce you to our temporary IT man who is currently developing our internal and external websites. He's a strange man who never really talks to anyone. I've been making an effort to interact with him but have found conversation neigh on impossible. I tried talking about Lord if the Rings computer games. Music - he categorises his alphabetically because HE has too many cds and wouldn't be able to find them otherwise. 

anyway I have resorted to asking him if he has nicknames when e-mailling him work stuff - to make him feel accepted. 

This e-mail exchange today actually made me laugh out loud. 


enjoy!



Does anyone call you Dazza?
> 
> 
> I have attached some stuff for the referrals section of the internal 
> website.
> 
> Catriona

Thank you very much indeed for sending me these links.  I can only express my gratitude in the strongest of terms and I will get to work making them available to all with enthusiasm, even vim.
 
Re: "Dazza". No one applies that particular cognomen to me, a circumstance, I have to say, that I am not entirely unhappy with.  I do sometimes encourage "Dar" but only with intimates, soul mates, cosmic twins and star crossed lovers.

Strangely, I've found that since I started working on this intranet project I've become irresistible to women but, hey, that's the LINKS EFFECT.

(tumbleweed)

D.