Jerusalem Fartichokes

Have you noticed?

Unlike asparagus and strawberries now these are truly seasonal and grow like weeds. I dug these up before the ground got too hard and made a delicious lunch with a grating of Lincolnshire Poacher cheddar on top. Mmmm…

Dhal for lunch

So easy, so delicious, so nutritious, so warming and so cheap. A sweet potato and lentil dhal with naan bread – didn’t make the bread but I did use coriander seeds out of the garden.

Proper Farmers

Ruth’s grape harvest on the way to be made into grape juice at the pressers – who Andy promised to take pictures of when he dropped them off.

Pumpkin Time

Apple Days

A chance to taste those varieties that supermarkets don’t stock and may be even buy a tree. I have a  Pitmaston Pineapple in my garden, from Crown Nursery Apple Day  two years ago. It has small but definitely pineapple-tasting sweet yellow russet apples. On Saturday I stopped at my favourite community cafe for a few pounds of theirs on their Apple Day, and a bottle of juice…and two great big slabs of apple cake which I should have made myself!  www.crown-nursery.co.uk  is near Woodbridge.

The end of the produce…

Here is my sad looking vegetable patch now that we are heading into the colder weather. A few swede and some celeriac for later, one row of carrots for the odd stew and some chard left. Everything else has gone - but at least I haven’t had to buy any vegetables for the whole summer.

 

Tomato mini pizza

So many tomatoes at the moment that I have had every recipe I can think of and made soup, pasta sauce, ratatouille and lots of others.  But this was simple and delicious and used up a bit of old ciabatta at the same time. So easy I’m not going to put it in Recipes - just spread pesto (from a jar not home made) on the bread, halved cherry tomatoes and a shaving of parmesan, then grill until brown. If you teach your children this they can make it after school, and it works really well on half a muffin too, just call it mini pizza.

Blue Hubbard soup

Aka a pumpkin (or squash) I bought from a side of the road, kindly labelled by the grower as I wouldn’t have known what a Blue Hubbard was. A tiny bit under-ripe I thought, but very tasty nonetheless. See Recipes for how to do it.

Black Beauties

Will probably get a bit of rude spam after that title like when Mum called herself lusciousnibbles@virgin.net or something similar by mistake and was inundated with porn.  Been out for blackberries after reading that there are about 140 different types out there. The writer lived in London, only picked above waist height (!) and suggested you buy sweeter varieties from a supermarket as the wild ones have to be cooked to be sweet. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Blueberries in Hepworth

Found out that we can buy fresh local blueberries right on our doostep here in West Suffolk. Jo Garden grows them at Hepworth www.gardenberries.co.uk and makes the best blueberry jam there too. She also sells the bushes ( currently on a special offer) if you want one in your garden to sprinkly a few on your cereal every day. Of course you can buy blueberries cheaper in supermarkets but it’s a bit like blackberries – why would you buy them from a supermarket when you  can get them from a farm or a hedge near you?