Do you grow broccoli rabe (also known as crimi di rapa, broccoli raab, turnip broccoli)? If you don’t, but have a veg patch, however tiny, please, consider it. In Joy Larkom´s classic `Grow your own vegetables` that makes most other gardening books redundant, it´s given three stars in “value for space” rating. It’s very fast growing (we harvested the first shoots 50 days after sowing, even though the weather has been unusually cold) and thanks to the succulent stems and tiny broccoli heads it’s a little more substantial than most of the spring veg that tends to be primarily leaves. It can be either sown early in the year, or later (July, August) as a very useful second crop. Late sowings are less prone to bolting. But the cold weather this year means that though the growth is slower, vegetables like broccoli rabe, mustards, spinach and radishes that appreciate cool weather are thriving. Read more »
As I mentioned before, the holidays of my childhood were rather different from today. We celebrated International Workers’ Day (compulsory) and International Women’s Day (ditto) but I hardly knew anything about, say, Halloween. I was however aware that in other countries they had a holiday called Mother’s Day, thanks to reading Stephen Leacock’s “How we kept Mother’s Day” in high school. I thought it was hilarious. Now I am a mother, too, and that has changed my perspective. I laugh a little less when I read that story now. Like other women I strive for the elusive balance between family and work, trying to put a meal on the table every night and not lose patience over the kids’ homework just because I know I should be dealing with my own. Read more »
Because I was born in an Eastern European communist country, and my husband grew up in Western democracy, our childhood memories are sometimes rather different.
To him, 1st May has always been just the day after Queen’s Day. But in the communist Czechoslovakia it was celebrated as the International Workers’ Day. Each year, huge parades were organized where every company or school had to march carrying banners and waving when passing the communist leaders on a tribune. Although attendance was officially not compulsory, anyone’s absence would have been noted and not appreciated. Read more »
Last Monday, the whole Dutch nation celebrated the Queen’s birthday. This might lead you to believe that queen Beatrix was actually born 30th April. Not so, it was her mother’s birthday. But upon inheriting the throne, the queen very wisely decided not to move the feast to her actual birthday, which is 31st January. Her people might not enjoy the mostly outdoor festivities quite as much when it’s freezing, she thought. Read more »
The wonderful thing about perennial vegetables is that in spring they grow a lot faster than their annual counterparts. Because they start growing from well established roots instead of having to germinate first and make roots later, in our edible forest, we can start harvesting weeks (maybe months) before there’s anything to pick in the vegetable garden. Read more »
It seems that the two main harvest from the allotment at the moment are rhubarb and daffodils. No problem, I like both a lot. They both signal the start of a new garden season; daffodils are the first flowers that I can make a decent bouquet of, and rhubarb is the very first (and for weeks the only) fruit we’ll harvest. And yes, it is a vegetable, I know. But a vegetable that you can put into tarts, muffins or cobblers. Unlike the charming free-form rhubarb tarts, rhubarb cobbler is slightly less elegant, but also a lot faster to throw together. The rhubarb does not have to be precooked, only mixed with sugar and orange and left to marinate. The biscuit dough comes together in minutes and is just spooned over the rhubarb. It can also be rolled out and cut with a round cookie cutter, but that’s up to you. Either way, the taste is a beautiful combination of tart, orange scented rhubarb and sweet cakey biscuit that is crisp on top. Read more »
We all know that pulses are good for us and that we should be eating more of them. Especially vegetarians and vegans should, because pulses are a great source of protein. The trouble is, pulses require a bit of planning: you have to soak them overnight, and then they take quite a bit of time to cook. I get around this problem by not planning – I just cook them whenever I think of it, without any specific dish in mind. One evening I will soak a bag of beans or chickpeas, the next day when I am in the kitchen cooking something else I will cook them, and after they have cooled store them in the fridge. They will keep for at least 3 days, so whenever during the week I’ll run out of time, they ‘ll be there waiting – dinner half ready. Read more »
I am sad. This week we heard that we will lose our allotment. The land is on lease and the owner wants it back. After 40 years that it had been used by the organic allotment association (during which the soil has been greatly improved), she decided she wants it back – not to use it herself or to sell, for no apparent reason. We have gardened there for eight years using the permaculture no-dig approach, this will be our last, ninth season. It will also mean that we lose the possibility to gather data on how the no-dig approach works in the long term. The best outcome we can hope for at this moment is that we will be allowed to stay until the end of the year, so that we can replant our fruit-trees and berry shrubs after they go dormant. That is: if we can find another piece of land to move them to. Read more »
Isn’t it funny how when you have leftover egg whites all recipes you come across call for egg yolks and vice versa? Or does this just happen to me?
A couple of recent baking projects left me with 4 egg whites and because I am burdened with an inborn thriftiness, I had to find a way to use them. When I say “egg whites”, the first thing that probably comes to mind is “macaroons”, but since I was more in need of an unfussy dinner than another fussy baking project, the egg whites ended in a potato pancake batter. Or to sound fancier: “Crêpe parmentier”, pancakes named after Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, a Frenchman who put a considerable effort and lots of imagination into convincing his countrymen that potatoes were edible. Read more »
Finally, there’s something else to harvest from the allotment other than weeds: rhubarb! I blanched one plant by covering it with a black bucket and it was ready for harvest on Sunday. Every year I carefully consider the first rhubarb recipe of the season, but this year there was little competition: like many before me I fell hard for these free-form rhubarb tarts from Kim Boyce’s brilliant cookbook “Good to the Grain, baking with Whole-Grains”. Read more »
