Growing a reasonable amount of our own food with less than perfect planning of same means we enjoy, the right word, the occasional glut. I've written here before about trying to make good use of courgettes, the allotmenteer's most frequent flood crop. Currently it is artichokes.
On a general level life can't be bad when one of your few worries is dealing with a load of artichokes. They have been both early and numerous this year thanks to the mild winter and spring and the already decent summer. The first as is usual were boiled to be eaten leaf base by leaf base dipped in mustardy vinaigrette as a starter, the meaty heart gradually revealed by the strip tease. There are few things as simple and delicious.
Last night having picked and cooked a bagful of smaller ones (to keep the flush of thistly flowers going) the too fiddly leaves were discarded and just the hearts used, cut into little chunks and mixed with boiled egg, very thinly sliced onion and prawns. How much would that have cost had a 'celebrity' chef's name been attached to it in a recently re-designed eaterie?
It takes gluts like that to give me the freedom to do a bit of experimenting. Had I shopped for the artichokes a) I would have just bought three; b) the cost would have pushed me to play it safe.
Sadly we don't grow our own asparagus - we tried and lacking sandy ground failed - so I will not be doing much other than steaming it, but then something so good doesn't need mucking about. Same goes for the bucketfuls of new spuds currently hitting the kitchen, though some cold leftovers made it into a pickled herring salad yesterday. You can tell how many we have currently by the fact that there actually are leftovers.
Freshness is one of the benefits of GYO - our eggs are rarely more than a day or two old for example, a world of difference to shop bought; lettuces are crisper and tastier eaten within minutes of cutting; stawberries can't be beaten snaffled straight from plant to mouth (checking for slug-basts on the way). But the king of the fresh-is-best world is the new spud. Jersey Royals in the supermarket - they beat us by weeks - are bought in expectation and eaten in resignation. Our own dug, wiped, boiled and scoffed in short order are softer, the texture almost gelatinous for some varieties. And they have so much flavour that the merest wipe of butter and a few grains of salt are called for. Still, having had our fill several times over by now I'm looking to do some other dishes for variation. I have in mind to do something spicy to enhance the flavour without masking it. All ideas gratefully received.
Thursday, 19 June 2014
Sunday, 8 June 2014
Worth and Cost Aren't the Same
Our new potatoes have started, and they are by my reckoning a good fortnight earlier than last year thanks to the mild winter and spring. The flavour is like nothing you will ever find in a supermarket.
In the journal I'm keeping of the costs and benefits of our allotment and kitchen garden I assign monetary values to the produce. But good food goes way beyond pounds and pennies. New spuds eaten within a couple of hours of digging are pretty much priceless, such is the ephemeral nature of their perfection - leave them a day and the difference is considerable, leave them two and there is a feeling of guilt for wasting such a boon.
Spuds are not the only such item for the kitchen gardener: the best of sweetcorn is perhaps even more fleeting, something to be picked and rushed back to the pot within minutes if possible. Peas likewise - which is why I'll never buy 'fresh' peas in the supermarket, not a patch on the best frozen ones (thanks Clarence).
We had artichoke bottoms in our salad yesterday (they are likewise well ahead of last year's schedule), something else where picked small and cooked fresh from the plot the flavour and textures are a million miles from the mealy monsters available from Mr Sainsbury (if and when he actually offers them - not seen any recently). Even the humble radish, ridiculously easy and quick to grow, is crunchier and fierier by far than the plastic bagged red jobbies (which is another thing - we grow red, yellow, white, purple, red and white etc etc).
In that profit and loss calculation I'm attempting in the journal should I assign a value to the health benefits of digging, watering and weeding (about my only serious physical labour/exercise)? And the health benefits too of the variety of our diet and its superiority in terms of vitamins and maybe even minerals to what we can get from the shops? How to calculate the financial value of great flavour?
The value goes further. When Nepalese politicians (I think it was in Nepal anyway) tried to monitor Gross National Happiness as an alternative to Gross Domestic Product etc the newspapers and other media outlets here generally took a condescending standpoint. I'm far more interested in GNH than GDP. If more of us grew our own spuds Britain's GNH would rise significantly.
In the journal I'm keeping of the costs and benefits of our allotment and kitchen garden I assign monetary values to the produce. But good food goes way beyond pounds and pennies. New spuds eaten within a couple of hours of digging are pretty much priceless, such is the ephemeral nature of their perfection - leave them a day and the difference is considerable, leave them two and there is a feeling of guilt for wasting such a boon.
Spuds are not the only such item for the kitchen gardener: the best of sweetcorn is perhaps even more fleeting, something to be picked and rushed back to the pot within minutes if possible. Peas likewise - which is why I'll never buy 'fresh' peas in the supermarket, not a patch on the best frozen ones (thanks Clarence).
We had artichoke bottoms in our salad yesterday (they are likewise well ahead of last year's schedule), something else where picked small and cooked fresh from the plot the flavour and textures are a million miles from the mealy monsters available from Mr Sainsbury (if and when he actually offers them - not seen any recently). Even the humble radish, ridiculously easy and quick to grow, is crunchier and fierier by far than the plastic bagged red jobbies (which is another thing - we grow red, yellow, white, purple, red and white etc etc).
In that profit and loss calculation I'm attempting in the journal should I assign a value to the health benefits of digging, watering and weeding (about my only serious physical labour/exercise)? And the health benefits too of the variety of our diet and its superiority in terms of vitamins and maybe even minerals to what we can get from the shops? How to calculate the financial value of great flavour?
The value goes further. When Nepalese politicians (I think it was in Nepal anyway) tried to monitor Gross National Happiness as an alternative to Gross Domestic Product etc the newspapers and other media outlets here generally took a condescending standpoint. I'm far more interested in GNH than GDP. If more of us grew our own spuds Britain's GNH would rise significantly.
Tuesday, 3 June 2014
Smaller Giant Beans
I love Greek food, the simpler the better. A plateful of char-grilled lamb chops with dried origano, lemon and garlic eaten with chilled wine at an outdoor taverna is pretty close to perfection. To round the meal off a little I'd order potatoes baked in chunks with the same flavourings as an accompaniment, Greek salad, and gigantes beans.
The latter can be bought at the supermarket in rather stingy jars that cost about £2.50. Very nice, very easy to present as part of a mezze, but given it's a few beans and some tomatoey sauce Jack's bargain with the family cow was not much worse, so I had a go at making my own. They turned out to be, if not magical, pretty delicious.
The tomato sauce was just a tin of pulped toms, 35p from Lidl, some ground cumin and pepper, dried origano, 1/2 tsp of smoked paprika and 1/2 tsp of sugar, plus four cloves of garlic bashed under a wide knife-blade and added to the pot to bubble gently for 10 minutes. Two tins of butter beans were needed to retain the right bean/sauce ratio, heated through in the same pot then seasoned before serving. That gave us a warm version with Saturday's BBQ and cold with Sunday lunch. Butter beans at 55p a tin, so the full cost of the two servings (both more generous than one of those jars) was say £1.60.
They were not exactly like the shop-bought ones, as butter beans are not gigantic, but were still reminiscent of taverna offerings, especially as an accompaniment to lamb chops on the barbie. I'd use less sugar next time, and add some thyme leaves, but there will definitely be a next time.
The latter can be bought at the supermarket in rather stingy jars that cost about £2.50. Very nice, very easy to present as part of a mezze, but given it's a few beans and some tomatoey sauce Jack's bargain with the family cow was not much worse, so I had a go at making my own. They turned out to be, if not magical, pretty delicious.
The tomato sauce was just a tin of pulped toms, 35p from Lidl, some ground cumin and pepper, dried origano, 1/2 tsp of smoked paprika and 1/2 tsp of sugar, plus four cloves of garlic bashed under a wide knife-blade and added to the pot to bubble gently for 10 minutes. Two tins of butter beans were needed to retain the right bean/sauce ratio, heated through in the same pot then seasoned before serving. That gave us a warm version with Saturday's BBQ and cold with Sunday lunch. Butter beans at 55p a tin, so the full cost of the two servings (both more generous than one of those jars) was say £1.60.
They were not exactly like the shop-bought ones, as butter beans are not gigantic, but were still reminiscent of taverna offerings, especially as an accompaniment to lamb chops on the barbie. I'd use less sugar next time, and add some thyme leaves, but there will definitely be a next time.
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