Cooking horizons are broadening

I tend to get stuck in a meal rut where week after week I’ll cook the same recipes, obviously I’ll vary the day a little but still it gets a bit predictable after a while, so I have decided to make Saturday night my experimental meal night. Maybe I won’t always manage it, sometimes only pizza will do but I’m hoping it will encourage me delve into my many recipe books and actually try to cook something new.

Last Saturday I kicked off with a fantastic recipe from Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook for Spinach ??? which is a basically an easy and slightly cheaty (in my opinion) way to make spinach ravioli. Spinach was featuring on my mind because despite the odds my spinach patch survived the winter and has begun to re-grow; suddenly have an abundance of baby spinach leaves. Sarah Raven’s book is perfect for these situations because the recipes are divided by ingredient; gluts are instantly turned into opportunities!

Spinach Malfatta

for 4:
500g spinach
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 egg white
50g Parmesan cheese, finely grated
100g breadcrumbs
plenty of fresh grated nutmeg, to taste
1 tablespoon spring herbs (parsley, chives or fennel)
Salt and black pepper
1 tablespoon flour
Tomato sauce to serve

Remove the stems from the spinach and finely chop the leaves. Cook in a little salted water until tender and then drain and squeeze out the water. Combine the spinach with the garlic, egg white, Parmesan, breadcrumbs, nutmeg, herbs, salt and pepper.

Shape the mixture into small balls about the size of walnuts. To cook, lay them in a steamer lined with lightly oiled greaseproof paper, you can do 2 layers at once if you need to. Steam for about 10 minutes.

I served them with the last batch of tomato sauce from the freezer.

A short gap

So it has been almost, but not quite, a month since my last post. July really was a very busy month, OH turned 30 so we had lots of birthday celebrations and somehow I just didn't manage to fit much allotment time in.

There is plenty to be eating at the moment, the onions are good and the garlic is very tasty. We have almost finished the Charlotte potatoes but hopefully some of the maincrops will be ready soon. There is plenty of spinach and at the moment the courgettes are supplying just the right amount for us to get through, no doubt that will all change soon.

Hopefully tomorrow will be dry enough for me to have a go at reclaiming my allotment, yep you guessed it the weeds have taken over.

Sowing, sowing and growing

Well the weather has turned, the snow seems like a distant memory and everything is going full steam ahead. The allotment is going wild and I have spent a fair few hours battling with the weeds, so far I am winning but the ground is definitely getting harder to dig. So far 3 rows of carrots have been sowed and 3 rows of parsnips are in, 2 of the parsnip rows are from chitted seed so I will be able to compare the results (provided at least some come through of course).

With all this beautiful weather it is easy to get carried away and in fact my neighbor's row of tomato plants has had me very tempted but there is still a risk of frost for a couple of weeks yet so I am going to play it safe and keep my tomato plants in the crappy greenhouse until we are well into May.

The celeriac and leeks were started off inside, so far both are growing well and I allowed them out for their first day of sunshine today, they'll go back inside for the night and I'll begin the tedious task of moving things inside and out for the next week or so. The spinach was also started off inside to keep them safe from slugs, they'll be planted out when they are a little larger.

Last week I also sowed rather a lot, probably way too much, sprouting broccoli, so far most of it has come through so if I case just keep it safe from the cabbage whites and the rabbits I am in for a bumper crop. We are due a week of rain so hopefully the soil will get a thorough drenching without losing too much of the heat and then next weekend can be a complete sowathon!