First home grown vegetables of the season

With the wet and cold start to summer back in June, all of my vegetable plants are behind schedule this year. However now with warmer and sunnier days, things are picking up and yesterday I pulled up my first crop of potatoes I'd grown in a plant pot about 40cm wide. Because it was such a small pot I wasn't expecting much, just hoping for enough for dinner. I was pleasantly surprised! After pulling up the stems of the plants I was met with the sight of golden potatoes; I always find this part fun and exciting, it feels like panning for gold!

I ended up with just over two pounds of new potatoes, half of which I used this evening for dinner and the rest I shall use over the weekend. Now I have high hopes for the potatoes still growing in a big grow bag!

Finally some of my courgettes have been pollinated so this evening I picked two to have with dinner and it looks like there will be another one or two ready tomorrow so I will make a vegetable lasagne with those. They taste so much fresher than store bought courgettes (like all home grown produce really) and their skins are much smoother and not tough like the store ones either. And at last I have a cucumber! It was the only one growing, I'm not sure if it was inhibiting any more from growing or if the others simply didn't get pollinated, but now I've picked it hopefully it won't be long before another is ready to pick. I'm still waiting for the beans to grow and tomatoes to ripen.

There really is nothing better than picking your own vegetables and getting them straight on the plate.   The dream is to one day have a big greenhouse and lots of raised beds to grow all sorts of delights!

Using up the courgette glut

The unusually warm, long summer has paved the way for glut of courgettes. This year I've stuck to growing my yellow courgette plants in containers, but even so, up until recently they were producing more courgettes than I could keep up with. At first I was roasting courgette slices to add to dinners and vegetable skewers when we had barbecues, but after looking on line for some inspiration a few recipes caught my eye.

The first one I tried was courgette, potato and cheddar soup. This recipe was so simple and quick to make. I peeled one large potatoe and chopped it into cubes and added it to a pan with enough water to cover the potatoes. I crumbled in a stock cube and left it to simmer for five minutes before adding about 4 medium courgettes, again chopped into cubes. I let it simmer for a further 5 minutes before added a bunch of finely chopped spring onions and letting it simmer for a final 5 minutes.

Once cooked through, I removed the soup from the heat and added a small handful of grated cheddar cheese and mixed it, before blending it into a smooth soup. 

I added a sprinkle of grated cheese and a couple of spring onions on top to serve. It tasted so good! I thought the combination could be a little bland but the flavours all worked together to make a nutritious and filling soup. I've made this a few times since as an easy way to use up a growing stock of courgettes and I particularly like using yellow courgettes as ithe bright colours give it a nice summer feel. 

The next recipe I was keen to try was for courgette cake. For this I found an American recipe online and converted all of the measurements to make a loaf cake. I was surprised by the flavour of courgette cake, having never tried it before, it was very light and almost floral. The cake was a hit and I've made it a couple of times since.

Finally I wanted to try making courgette fritters, as I'd bought them ready made a couple of years ago from a supermarket and really enjoyed them. They are so simple to make! You just need a bowl of milk and a bowl of plain flour to start. Cut the courgettes into batons, dip them in milk and coat them in the flour before frying them. 

These were a hit too, simple and quick to make and a great accompaniment to summer dishes. The courgette plants have slowed down a lot now so I don't think there will be too many more to pick before the end of the season, but hopefully there'll be enough for another cake or batch of soup!

October Harvest

The vegetable plants in my garden have nearly finished for the year. This is yesterday's crop, although there is also a large box full of apples that didn't fit in the photo. 

I might use some of the apples to make apple and parsnip soup. I found a recipe online last weekend and have already tested it out. It was delicious and so simple to make.

Updates from the week

It's been a windy and cold day here following an otherwise sunny week, so I decided to stay indoors for most of the day. At lunch time I decided to quickly pot up the 19 cherry tomato seedlings which had outgrown their small propagator. I was beginning to regret this an hour and a half later when I still wasn't done and had run out of plastic pots, but got there eventually, and have found that water bottles cut in half make a good plant pot/greenhouse pot in one.

Yesterday I planted some pretty viola plants in old terracotta pots that had just been lying about in the garden. I had been to the garden centre and found some greatly reduced flowers, mostly just because a few out of the tray had withered, so I picked up a tray of violas for 10p, and watered them at home and left them overnight. The following day I moved them all into their own pots and 16 out of the 20 plants from the tray were potted up, and although one more has since withered away the remaining 15 plants have picked up and are looking very healthy.

As we have a guest for dinner this evening I've also made a chocolate cake for dessert, I've already had a taster of the fudge icing and its yummy. I'll add a few strawberries and might dust it with cocoa powder to serve.

And finally, earlier this week I had a second attempt at the cinnamon rolls which I blogged about here, and I think it was slightly more successful as they're looking a lot more like rolls now!

I've also purchased a few things this weekend but I'm off to Primark tomorrow so shall wait and see if I have anything else to add to my haul before I blog about them!

A few new purchases...

Retail therapy was calling this week, and with free train tickets I had no excuse not to take a trip out for a few hours of shopping. Unfortunately it was a whistle-stop tour of the shops as I had to get back in time for work in the afternoon, and I only bought two things from Primark and picked up my online order from Next, but I did have a great lunch with my mum at Cafe Rouge, (although a forty minute wait for our order meant we missed out on calling on a few more shops on our way back to the station :( ! ) Anyway here are my two tiny purchases from Primark:

These slippers were just £1 on sale from £3.50 and I love the cute little butterfly buttons on them!

I couldn't resist the gorgeous print on this tea towel and at only £1.20 my mind was made up in an instant! Having got it home I'm now hoping to pick up a couple more as I think it would make a lovely cushion with a few sequin embellishments or an apron with a co-ordinating blue ribbon.

I also picked up a new dress on a quick visit to town yesterday too. I'd been looking for a cosy dress for ages and I found just what I was looking for in Dorothy Perkins, and best of all it was on sale for £12 and I had a £10 gift voucher from the McCain website for just playing a few games!

Before all the rain arrived I also had time to get out in the garden this week and have now sown some early pea, early carrot, sweet pea and spring onion seeds to join my beefsteak tomatoes, pansies and the chilis i'm plantsitting! I've also potted up two lovely climbing roses that i'm hoping to grow on my balcony and have a couple more to plant out in the garden when the rain goes away. I just need to find time to sow some parsnip and cherry tomato seeds now and then I can relax until April!