Harvest Time

While the combines are busy day and night in the fields surrounding our house my own small scale harvest is also underway. There is something amazingly satisfying about being able to turn this array of vegetables into the gift of pickles artistically displayed below

Pickles in the Rosemary

What started life as just four seeds purchased from the varied and reliable www.gardenorganic.org.uk has already yielded thirty mini cucumbers. Thank goodness I did only plant a few unlike the great mountain of a couple of years ago. Bitter to eat raw, these beauties do well salted over night and immersed in garlic and dill infused vinegar.

Vert Petit du Paris

Before and After

I like the simplicity and variety in The Preserving Book by Lynda Brown whatever produce you have there is inspiration to be found for both sweet and savoury things.

So as well as the cucumbers there are prolific quantities of jewel red tomatoes ripeing daily and ready soon for turning into to more of the delicious Thai Chilli Jam.

Dwarf beans have done well, green peppers were late starters but are now coming into their own. The summer fruiting raspberries have ended to be replaced seamlessly by the autumn variety.

The garlic is fat and juicy and the best onion crop for years is up and drying in the now overcrowded greenhouse.

Red Baron

September is looking pretty busy in the garden and kitchen

More Summer Nights

With a summer like this one it is hard to imagine anything other that evening after evening spent enjoying drinks and meals outside. The conversations bemoaning an absence of barbecue weather are non existent. Instead we search for alternatives to the tasty but sometimes predicable sausages and meaty fare.

Last night the inspiration came from Spain. One of my very best city breaks was to Seville. This city has it all, old town, river, shops, parks and right in the middle a stunning cathedral and naturally the tapas bars. Barcelona was wonderful too and we returned with cases (pre light weight wheely luggage) heavy with the terracotta dishes I still use all the time.

Tapas was the theme for our outdoor dinner we began with olives, chorizo, ham, bread grilled on the BBQ with garlic and tomato. Plus those delicious padron peppers (a surprise supermarket find) fried for one minute in olive oil and sprinkled with salt flakes. Gazpacho was a two minute blitz of passata, sherry, chilli, red pepper, garlic and plenty of chives.

Tapas

To follow we had Moorish Skewers of pork marinaded with sweet pimenton, cumin, thyme, garlic and olive oil. These were served with mojo picon an improbable sounding sauce made from fried bread, chilli, cumin seeds, more pimenton and sherry vinegar which was a perfect combination. Green beans from the garden mixed with roasted peppers or in Spainish "judias verdes a la castella" went perfectly.

Moorish Skewers & Mojo Picon

As the dusk appeared we lit the chiminea for the first time in weeks a reminder to keep on making the most of this summer while it is here