Veg Plotting

This is a great way to use up stale bread and is adapted from this Italian recipe  I found when I googled "soup made from bread". I ate it warm and freshly made, though I think it'll be great chilled for the hot days we're due later this week. I'd also throw in a can of cannellini beans for a warming winter version.  I've added this delicious recipe to my store cupboard/use of leftovers/heart friendly options - it's tooth friendly too which is sorely needed until I can get sorted at the dentist's 😋 Serves 4 generously Ingredients 1 tbs olive oil 1 large red onion, finely chopped 2 x cans chopped tomatoes - I used one with herbs and the other with garlic and peppers in the Lidl range (add extra Italian herbs and garlic to taste if using plain chopped/plum/fresh tomatoes) Freshly ground black pepper to taste 1 tsp powdered garlic Half a teaspoon chipotle paste (or similar to taste to add a slight chilli kick) 1 litre vegetable stock (I used 4tsp low sal...

  It's time to start documenting the heart friendly recipes I've created or adapted over the past few years. First up is the aubergine bake I made last week which gave us two yummy hearty meals served over a couple of nights with a large salad. Here's the recipe card I created as the original recipe  I adapted is looking rather tired and scrappy with scribbled notes and well-thumbed use! I hope you enjoy this simplified version; it's especially nice as a summer recipe when aubergines and courgettes are in abundance. I rescued some chopped aubergines and courgettes from the freezer for a lovely throwback to summer days to help cheer up our January blues. Let me know how you get on 😋

How's your veg growing this year? Here at VP Gardens , it's one of the strangest of seasons, particularly where the cucurbit family are concerned. I have no squash forming at all, and my cucumbers refuse to grow beyond an inch in size. Courgettes, on the other hand, are pumping themselves out like there's no tomorrow. How come one from the same family is prolific and the others aren't, despite all of them grown on my sunny patio? It's a mystery to me. It means I've added another quick and easy seasonal recipe to my courgette glutbuster repertoire: courgette tzatziki. It's perfect for a summer lunch when the usual cucumber glut hasn't materialised. Serve with plenty of warm or toasted wholemeal pitta bread, and this recipe serves two generously. Ingredients 1 medium courgette, grated Grated zest of 1 unwaxed lemon + 1 tsp lemon juice 1 tbsp fresh mint, chopped + enough extra reserved for garnish - use what you have to hand which is more 'traditional...

There's been a phenomenal fruit set on my apple tree - a combination of early warmth at the right time for pollinators followed by plenty of rain means June drop hasn't really happened here this year. I thinned these recently alongside dozens more and removed a couple of others with brown rot (see next photo). I think there might be more of that to come this year, so I'll be keeping an eye out and keep my fingers crossed it doesn't take a more determined hold.  As you can see from the photo below I picked lots of fruit of a good weight and I pondered over  on Insta whether I could make an early batch of apple jelly from thinned or June drop apples when they're of such a reasonable size. My garden books and internet search gave me conflicting advice: on the one hand 'it's OK', and on the other 'oooh you shouldn't do that as there's a  risk of illness from a fungus which isn't destroyed by cooking.' Hmmm. I'm so glad I posed that...

It's citizen science week here at VP Gardens as I've signed up to take part in The Big Plastic Count which starts today. The aim of the count is to gather data from as many households as possible on how much and the kinds of plastic we throw away as part of our everyday lives. Around 150,000 households are said to be taking part, including myself and at least one of my friends. Once the results are in, the organisations involved will have a better picture of the scale of the problem we face here in the UK. They also will have better facts to take to government (both local and national) and the organisations who create or use the plastic - such as food companies - to lobby for alternative packaging solutions. Like with any project of this kind I'm sure the results will lead to further questions and the potential need to drill down further in the data. Whilst there are 19 categories of plastic in the survey, many of them are quite broad and only give an idea of numbers not ...

I harvested last year's olive crop from my patio allotment over the weekend. As you can see the olive growers of Spain, Italy and Greece can rest easy 🤣  Inspired by Andrew's recent post on Facebook and being a curious, experimental soul, I'm having a go at turning them from completely inedible* into something that might just**, grace one of the Greek salads we have on a weekly basis. I've have some of those teeny tiny jam jars -  saved from tea shop forays just in case they come in handy - and after discarding the wrinkly ones and the stems into the compost bin, I have just** enough olives to fill 2 of them. I found the instructions for dry salt-cured olives Andrew mentioned in his post, which in turn has a link to how to pit olives when they're ready to eat in around three weeks time. Wish me luck. Next up is olive tree pruning***, once we've got rid of this spell of cold weather. * = reader, I tried one 😬 ** = only just mind *** = I'm going for a loo...

This recipe has come quite a long way since I first made it in August when my brother-in-law and wife came to stay. It's derived from a Delia recipe  which involves courgettes and I've adapted it to make it more heart friendly. It was well received and I've continued to make it to hoover up our plentiful courgette crop, until last month when I only had a small one left. However, I also had a teeny tiny winter squash which combined with the courgette was a complete revelation. The squash added lots of flavour and I resolved to continue with today's recipe to use up all the smaller ones from this year's crop. This week's variation was by accident when I sliced some of the squash so thinly, they were more like crisps when they came out of the oven. This got a huge thumbs up from NAH and the request for more like this in future. This has become a weekend favourite of ours for supper, served with a jacket potato, a large salad and a tasty dressing. Those wishing to k...

Garden visits have been thin on the ground this year, so it was wonderful to have the opportunity this week to catch up with Charles Dowding at his (relatively) new property in Somerset and chat to him about his latest book. Rest assured that Covid guidance was adhered to and I found myself in a select group of bloggers, podcasters and garden writers for my visit, and not the 900-odd visitors who crowd into Homeacres for one of Charles's open days in normal years! Regular readers may remember I visited Charles at his previous property - Lower Farm - in 2012 for my VPs VIPs  interview and 52 Week Salad Challenge strands. Then it was February and the start of the sowing season; what a difference a September visit makes with Charles's abundant produce and flowers positively glowing with good health everywhere. I needed no second invitation to munch on the tomatoes in the polytunnel; they were delicious. Homeacres is a smaller property of around a quarter of an acre. Here the in...

We reached a recovery milestone on Saturday with NAH venturing out to do the weekly shop for the first time since March. What we hadn't bargained for was my enthusiasm for using every scrap of a piece of paper and NAH being unused to what should be on there. As a result he shopped using last week's list found on the other side as I hadn't crossed it out like he usually does. It meant I had a surfeit of leeks and pondering them a couple of days ago, I came up with a simple, healthy stir-fry for tea, substituting the leeks for my usual choice of onions. The mange tout (snow peas) I planted out at the end of April are in full flow, so I used them instead of frozen peas, and the fresh red chilli came courtesy of my neighbour who presented me with a bag of them from her regular veg box order. NAH declared the result a success and I've decided the subtle flavour from the leeks makes for a more delicious stir-fry in future. The recipe follows... Ingredients   Oil spray for fry...

It started with a lemon lurking at the back of the fridge... Then thoughts of what to do with a leftover chicken carcass from the weekend... Then the discovery of a forgotten packet of orzo at the back of the cupboard. And so... A stock was made and the chicken stripped. Then the other ingredients plus carrots and a large leek from our stores, plus fresh herbs from the garden (oregano, rosemary and lemon thyme), plus plenty of freshly ground black pepper, all combined to give a soup invented for a rainy day with the taste of holiday memories. I always smile and think of my mum when making chicken soup in whatever form as she would never let the carcass go to waste in her kitchen. Chicken stew with beans and dumplings was her go to midweek meal. This version was yummy, so I've jotted down what you need to do if you'd like some of the same, plus I have some notes on suggested substitutions if what I happened to have doesn't fit with what you have. I do love the p...

First thought: Perhaps only a gardener knows the value of a heart shaped potato for Valentine's Day 😉 Second thought: Crikey! I didn't know I was that wrinkly! 👀 Third thought: Reader, we ate it 😜

A few days ago I was feeling rather peckish and knew this would be the worst possible time to walk to the shops and buy something for lunch; there's far too much temptation in there! My usual lunchtime options weren't available at home, so I started to think about other possibilities instead. Thankfully my store cupboard came up with the answer: frozen peas, onions, stock cubes and herbs, so it didn't take long to come up with a tasty pea soup. It took just 20 minutes to plate up the perfect antidote to a dull winter's day. Ingredients 1 litre vegetable stock (a stock cube dissolved in hot water is fine) 1 medium onion, sliced thinly 750g frozen peas (I used a bag of petit pois) Freshly ground black pepper to taste 4 heaped teaspoons dried mint (or fresh when in season) A swirl of cream, low fat creme fraiche, or natural yoghurt per bowl (optional) Method Pour the vegetable stock into a large pan and add the onion and peas Add the black pepper to ta...

My final twixt season post is a selection of new recipes I've enjoyed over the summer which have made the best of my garden's produce. No-one's told my vegetables it's autumn yet, in fact I'm only just coming up to peak tomato... First up is Good Food's Egyptian Courgettes with Dukkah Sprinkle . As you can see it makes good use of tomatoes as well as courgettes. The dukkah sprinkle on top was a revelation and the whole dish bursts with delicious flavours. I served this both hot and cold depending on the weather, and I expect the warm version will begin to hold sway as we head off into proper autumn. I omitted the recipe's butter beans (can't stand them) and peas (didn't have any) and increased the number of courgettes and tomatoes in the recipe to compensate and ensure it continued to deliver the recipe's claimed 4 out of 5 a day. I didn't have any almond flakes, so I substituted some roughly chopped whole, skin-on almonds instead. Th...

Autumn has seen plenty of culinary experiments, with the need to keep up my 5 a day and various trips providing lots of inspiration. In my Lancashire postcard , I talked about going to Booths and I came home with a number of recipes to try from their autumn leaflet and Christmas book. Their parsnip and hazelnut soup is a firm lunchtime favourite now, with the pear, blue cheese and prosciutto soda bread seen at the top of this post. I'm going to try adapting this into a bread maker recipe for a lighter loaf. There's no recipe available online for the soup, but it's an easy peasy one. I've adapted it slightly by omitting the 250ml whipping cream and I don't think the result suffers. Simply toast 75g hazelnuts in a large pan for 5 minutes, then add 1 teaspoon olive oil, 500g parsnips plus 2 garlic cloves (both peeled) and saute everything for 5 minutes. Then add 500ml vegetable stock and 500ml semi skimmed milk, plus salt and pepper to taste to the pan and b...

We went from zero to glut in one day as far as cucumbers were concerned last week. That turned out to be no problem as the variety I'm growing this year is relatively small and I've found my own delicious version of Tzatziki  uses them up with ease. I've not been well recently* and the medical advice going forward is to eat a low fat diet. I'm marvelling at how my body has accepted this so readily, not even turning a hair at all the tempting treats such as cheese on offer in the fridge. I'm sure it's its way of protecting me from harm. I've discovered how delicious Skyr ** is this week. This strained Icelandic version of yoghurt is super thick and is a fantastic substitute for mayonnaise when making a tuna filling for sandwiches or jacket potatoes. It's extremely low in fat and has lower sugar and higher protein levels to the usual natural yoghurts. The recent spell of hot weather got me thinking about cooling foods, so it was only natural I sh...

I'm easing back slowly* into bloggage again. There's been lots of reading over the past couple of months, and my sole foray into garden-related-ish activities was to make some fun, delicious cocktails and mocktails for WI last week. These went down well, and I thought you'd like to see the recipe leaflet I put together, especially as many of you'll have family gatherings and get togethers planned over Easter. I couldn't resist tweaking slightly Marc Diacono's gin recipe using Seville oranges to make 'marmalade gin' from his late January newsletter . Mine is a cheeky nod to the 'Jam and Jerusalem' WI stereotype, which is so far from the reality in ours. Flavoured gins whether distilled or infused are super trendy and I've found the latter are easy to make**. After a month of infusing, marmalade gin makes a fine Tom Collins . You don't need to wait until next January to make a start on your own as the usual oranges available can b...

It's Apple Day tomorrow and what a bumper crop we have chez VP Gardens and on the allotment this year. Today's post comes as a slightly premature celebration as we have family matters to attend to over the weekend. We enjoy fruit juice as a weekly treat on Sundays with our roast dinner, so it was a natural step to invest in a juicer. I swithered between this and an apple press, and in the end I plumped for a juicer as it's cheaper and fulfils our immediate needs. I did have a daydream about pressing oodles of juice for a full year's supply, but practical matters such as pasteurisation and storage swiftly brought me back to reality. I'm enjoying the process immensely and it's a great way of using up loads of apples, especially any windfalls where only the damaged or bruised bits should be left out. It takes around 12 of them to produce enough juice to fill 2 glasses. Our season started off last month with single variety 'Scrumptious' and I'm ...

The finished product: there are always some larger pieces which refuse to grind down to a fine dust Garlic is one of my favourite crops to grow because it's so simple and you can easily save some cloves for next year. We use quite a lot of it every week, which makes garlic a must-have for my plot. However, last year I was rather puzzled to find my harvest wasn't disappearing quite as quickly as expected. Some time later I found the solution to the mystery in our spice cupboard: a jar of garlic powder stood proudly in prime position on the top shelf. It turns out NAH prefers using the powdered form because it's less fiddly and so quick to use. To say I was a bit cross when I tackled him about it is putting it mildly as I felt all my hard work up at the allotment was being rejected. Later when I'd calmed down and could put myself in 'my customer's shoes' I resolved to have a go at making my own garlic powder. We both use the green garlic I grow whic...

You can read the whole of Robert Frost's wonderful After Apple Picking here .  I'm not quite as weary as Robert Frost's apple picker, but then I'm not doing it for a living. This year's crop is a good one, and now is the right time for picking most of them here at VP Gardens . It's the perfect way to celebrate today's Apple Day . This year marks a change in how I'll use some of my harvest. The bulk is for eating fresh or squirreling away in the freezer to extend the time I can add chopped apple to my daily porridge. The difference lies in what I'll be doing with the remainder: in the past windfall cake and apple jelly were our staple fare, but now we're trying to reduce the amount of refined sugar in our diet. As a result, a smart, shiny new juicer awaits these apples in my kitchen. I agonised for ages over whether to invest in this or a press. In the end I decided I'm not quite ready for a bulk approach to juicing, nor do I have t...