Morning Campers!
What a fab sunny day! Definitely no heating going on here anytime soon!
Now onto the heart-racingly exciting topic of courgettes (I know! I might have to have a sit-down in a minute!) If you are a home veggie-grower, you'll know all about the annual courgette glut. The plants go out around late May Bank Holiday & sit there in an impressive sulk for about a month, before deciding to grow......or not. We've had quite a glut of them this year & they haven't quite calmed down yet.
Made this courgette curry yesterday. It's tasty, low calorie & if you grow courgettes, as cheap as chips. If you have a glut of tomatoes too, even better, as you need both.
Here's what you do:
Slice 700g courgettes & 1 large onion. Skin, de-seed & chop 450g tomatoes. Crush 3 cloves garlic. OK, that's all the prep.
Heat 2 tbsp oil in a large pan & sizzle half tsp of cumin seeds & half tsp of black mustard seeds for 30 seconds. Add the onion & garlic & fry until just starting to turn golden. Now add half tsp turmeric, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp ground coriander, quarter tsp chilli powder & half tsp salt. mix well & continue to fry for a couple of minutes. Next tip in the courgette slices, stir well to coat them with the spices & cook for 5 mins or so.
That's my favourite bit, as they start smelling really good. They should start to cook, but not to burn, so stir them gently now & again so they don't catch. Now add the tomatoes which you prepped earlier, 1 good rounded tbsp of tomato puree & 150ml water. Stir well. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat, cover pan & simmer for about 12 mins, stirring occasionally. Add 1 tsp garam masala, replace lid & simmer for a final 4 or 5 mins. If you have any fresh coriander, you can chop some on top of the curry to serve.
This is really easy to make & freezes well, so if you are at that point where you feel you will actually turn into a striped green vegetable if you have to eat another one anytime soon, you can pop the curry away into the freezer for later in the year. It is good as a healthy side dish, or as a meal in its own right with rice, on a jacket potato or with the garlic flatbread recipe I shared a few posts ago. I think this is quite mild spicing. You can always turn the heat up if you prefer something hotter.....I should do that here, really, as the Bigger Hairier Half of the Relationship is blessed with an asbestos mouth!
There follows, I am surprised to say, a picture of a Genuinely Very Helpful Cat. I've got the cauldron bubbling this morning (apple chutney) & he's generally mithering around under my feet in case his dinner might be coming out 6 hours early. Today however, for the price of precisely 5 'Dreamies', he was content to sit on his blanket & contemplate the meaning of life.
Hope there is some of this autumn sunshine wherever you are, today. Until next time.......& honestly, each time I look at my Blogger stats, I can't believe how many people read my ramblings......
Love from,
C x
Hello Campers,
What a fab afternoon it's turned out to be. Blue sky, sunshine & am regretting throwing my sandals in the wheelie bin last week :-(
Some great pickings this morning......runner beans, more courgettes ('Defender' - shall have to grow this variety again, as they've been nicely prolific & generally un-arsey, unlike some I've grown in recent years), another mug of blackberries to add to my tub in the freezer & an unexpected scallop squash. The most exciting 'picking' today was our first two corn-on-the-cobs.
I know, I know, I'd hardly be excited if I'd popped them in my trolley at the supermarket, would I? But this is the first time we've ever tried growing sweetcorn & it seems to have been successful. I'd heard that there is no corn cob better than one which has been picked & thrown straight into a pan of boiling water & it's true! Really sweet & juicy & we're already planning to grow them again next year.
The only downside to today is how tired I feel, thanks to a certain badly-behaved cat. He rocked up at our bedroom door at 5.30 a.m today clawing & chuntering to be let in. You might think that 5.30 a.m isn't all that early, & it's true, I'm often awake by then, but I'd had very little sleep the previous night.........due to the same badly-behaved cat doing 2 prolonged sessions of door-clawing at around 1 a.m & again at 4 a.m. The 4 a.m shift started with standard clawing, then he became more imaginative. He tried shouldering the door - he's a chunky lad, so that produced a loud 'dumf' each time. He scratched at the door itself, then the door frame as he tried to winkle his claws in between & lever it. All methods having failed, he attempted to tunnel underneath........very noisily, adding a range of cross meows into the mix......for about half an hour without stopping. So that's two useless nights' sleep. Fully expecting to be awoken tonight by tapping on the window & he'll be there, having somehow abseiled off the roof on a length of my patio bunting. Naturally he's lying out on the lawn now like butter wouldn't melt, while I'm sitting here like Mrs Eye-bags. Rubbish!
C x
Hi Friends,
Today's pickings........watercress. Could have harvested more stuff to be honest, but it was wazzing down with rain & I feel like a beanbag in my cagoule. I've already bored everyone with my 'old washing-up bowl' method of growing watercress, so suffice it to say that my old washing-up bowl is still producing, though not as much as earlier in the year. As I could feel the rain running in rivulets down the back of my top, I just picked one bunch.......
......but that's all you need for a small batch of soup, so perfect.
One portion for lunch, two for the freezer & no wasted watercress.
Cat Help: Well, actually, he was GENUINELY helpful today. He helped by staying asleep on the sofa all morning instead of lying smack in the middle of the kitchen floor waiting for the fridge door to open. When he did go out, he did his usual wet weather thing of peering through his cat flap in the back door at the pouring rain.........then begging to be let out of the front! Ever the optimist, he always thinks it will only be raining out the back & the front drive will be dry. Wish you could see his face when he trots out & realises he's made the same old mistake again!
Have a good Friday night, all.
C x
Hello Friends,
Oooh, how much do I love Autumn? Absolutely my favouritest time of year bar none! Now we're back from our camping trip, I need to spend a bit of time each day picking & gathering so as not to waste a single scrap of our home grown harvest. Just a day or two when the weather's hot can mean lovely free organic food going past its best, so I need a boot up the bum.
Today it was chillies. I've already picked & frozen all the jalapenos, as well as a box of hot green Superchilli. The ones I left on the plant are now ripening nicely, so I've snipped all the bright red ones off today & strung them for drying.
It's really easy to do, with a needle & double thread passed through the stalk & feels a bit like making paper chains (which is what we used to do before we spent Oct - Dec fending off the creep of flashing plastic battery-filled tat shipped in from the other side of the world!) Of all the varieties of chilli I've grown so far, this one - Superchilli - has been the easiest, so if any novice growers fancy trying a few chilli plants, I can recommend it. The chillies are not as long as some of the cayenne types, but they are juicy & beautifully glossy.
There are still plenty of green fruits still to ripen, so I've left those on the plants - they should hopefully all be ripe by the end of the month, & if not, no worries, I'll freeze some more green ones. Nothing will be wasted.
The 3rd variety I grew this year....well, that was a new one to me - 'Pot Black' - & they were temperamental. The pack contained 5 seeds & not all of them germinated. I ended up with 2 decent plants. Once they'd decided to grow, they've been quite interesting. As the name suggests, they're a black-fruited variety......
......& they turn scarlet when ripe.
Can't comment on the flavour yet, but they are supposed to be quite a hot variety, so am hoping they'll be great in all sorts of dishes.
How did it get to be the middle of September already? I saw tins of biscuits in a shop last week with Christmas baubles on them, which means that Easter eggs are probably being put out as I type!) I intend to prioritise getting the rest of our fruit & veg in so will be putting a bit of time in every day until the end of the month. Doubtless I shall have plenty of Cat Help - the singularly most UNhelpful 'help' that could ever be offered. Albert Whiskers enjoys helping. I mean, he REALLY does. He went into full helpfulness mode recently when I decided to clear the duckweed out of our pond. I got out everything I needed, turned my back for less than a minute while I put my rubber gloves on, turned round to pick up the fishing net, & this is what I found.........
.......& he was most disgruntled when he was asked to move. He really is the most attention-seeking cat ever!
Another glorious day of sunshine here as soon as that mist had cleared. Hope you're all seeing some rays. Aiming to be back tomorrow.....that's if I haven't disappeared under a ton of windfalls, which I can't rule out.
Until next time,
C x
