Apple cake is very popular in Germany and this is my variation on the celebrity chef Rick Stein’s classic Apfelkuchen from his “Long Weekends” series.
This yummy cake has a crunchy cinnamon sugar topping. Use any dessert apples you wish except for Bramleys as they ‘fall’ and do not keep their shape once cooked.
I have swapped out plain flour for gluten-free plain flour, golden granulated sugar for vanilla sugar and butter for Flora buttery spread.
The Apfelkuchen is nut-free, pregnancy-friendly and vegetarian making it suitable for most diets. It stays lovely and moist for a few days if kept in an airtight container – but it is so yummy it probably won’t last that long!
Ingredients
2 dessert apples peeled, cored and sliced into thin wedges
1 tbsp lemon juice
125g (41/2 oz) Flora buttery, plus extra for greasing
140g/5 oz vanilla caster sugar
3 free-range eggs, at room temperature, beaten
225g/8 oz plain gluten-free flour
2 level tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
5 tbsp full-fat milk
For the topping
11/2 tbsp demerara sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Method
Preheat the oven to 170C/150C fan/340F/Gas 3. Butter and line a 23cm/9″ round cake tin with greaseproof baking paper.
Coat the apple wedges in the lemon juice and set aside.
In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar, using an electric hand mixer, until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs and beat until smooth. Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt and mix well. Slowly add the milk, mixing well after each addition until you have a smooth batter.
Transfer the cake batter to the cake tin. Arrange the apple slices, flat-side down, on the batter in a spiral pattern. Don’t worry if it’s not perfect.
For the topping, mix together the demerara sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle over the batter.
Bake in the centre of the oven for 40-45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean and the top is golden-brown. Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then run a knife around the edges of the cake and turn it out of the tin onto a wire rack to cool completely (if wished).
Serve this cake warm or at room temperature with whipped cream.
Chef’s tips
If you prefer to use butter in this recipe, make sure it is softened before combining it with the sugar.
This cake is delicious warm or cold and makes a wonderful pudding. You can also serve it with vanilla custard, creme fraiche, clotted cream or even a dollop of vanilla ice cream (my personal favourite with warm puddings), whatever floats your boat!
Some years ago now, my mother, following one of her trips to Scotland (my parents were both of Scottish heritage) gifted me a Hale Pocket Guide “Traditional Scottish Cookery” by Margaret Fairlie which cost just 60 pence – this was in 1995.
This recipe for morning rolls is taken from that pocket book, which was first published way back in 1973. I have always enjoyed cooking up Scottish cuisine as it is part and parcel of my culture and bloodline. My father’s porridge was always the best (though my mum’s was a close second) and I taught my husband how to make it the traditional Scottish way, too.
Like my mother and her mother before me, I am very fond of baking and this Morning Roll recipe is so simple, made with only a few ingredients. If you cannot find fresh yeast then substitute with 12 g dried yeast or thereabouts – round up to 2 x 7 g sachets if you wish.
Very popular, particularly in Glasgow and Fife, Morning Rolls are well-fired, airy and chewy with a crispy crust. They are sold everywhere in petrol stations, bakeries, newsagents and corner shops and are best eaten on the day they are made before they go rock hard! In Fife, a Cabin Biscuit or Roll is a local variant. Originating in Buckhaven, a town on the Firth of Forth on the east coast of Fife, sugar was added to prolong the shelf life of the roll as they were often enjoyed by crews aboard fishing boats and have distinctive prick marks on top. However, the Morning Roll or Cabin Biscuit is a bread roll and not a biscuit in either the British or American sense.
Ingredients
1 lb (450 g) plain flour
1 level tsp salt
2 oz (50 g) lard
1 oz (25 g) fresh yeast (or up to 2 x 7 g sachets dried fast action yeast)
1 tsp sugar
1/2 pt (300 ml) milk
Method
Sift the flour into a warm bowl with the salt and then lightly rub in the lard until fully combined.
In a separate bowl, cream the yeast and sugar until liquid (or if using yeast sachets, just mix them together). Strain (or tip) into flour mixture and make into a soft dough with the milk.
Cover with a tea towel and leave in a warm place to rise. This will take about an hour.
Knead lightly, then form into 3 inch (7.5 cm) rounds. Brush lightly with milk taking care not to let the milk run down the sides of the rolls, and dust with flour – you can do this with the help of a sieve or even a tea strainer!
Place on a greased and floured tin and leave in a warm place for 15 minutes.
Bake in a moderately hot oven (400oF/ 200oC/Gas Mark 6) for 15 to 20 minutes.
Turn rolls out on to a wire rack and allow to cool before serving.
CHEF’S TIPS:
Morning rolls are also delicious served still slightly warm with lashings of butter.
A delicious accompaniment to a bowl of homemade soup or filled with smoked Ayrshire bacon, square sausage or perhaps some good cheese and pickle.
Suitable for home freezing. As soon as the rolls have cooled, wrap individually in cling film, place in a freezer bag and transfer to the freezer. They are so tasty though they may not get that far!
My husband Dan and I don’t eat burgers very often but when we do, I like to sandwich the patties between homemade bread rolls with all the fix-ins for us to enjoy. Dan certainly prefers my bread over shop-bought and often asks: “is it from Evans bakery?” to which I often reply: “yes” – although I am honest if the bread is shop-bought.
Below is my go-to recipe for bread rolls, enough for four people. If you have more mouths to feed, double the quantities. The recipe can be adapted to suit your own tastes, so for example you could knead in mixed seeds, chopped olives or sundried tomatoes or even herbs to the dough before its second proving.
Ingredients (makes 4)
250g Strong bread flour (I like French flour)
1 tsp fast action dried yeast
½ tsp kosher salt
165 ml Lukewarm water
Method
1. Put bread flour in a large bowl. On one side put the dried yeast and on the other the salt (the two should not come into contact with one another initially or you will kill off the yeast). Stir together well with your fingers or the blade of a dessert knife.
2. Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour in about half the lukewarm water. Mix together with your fingers or the dessert knife. Gradually add more water – you may not need all the water* until you can bring the dough together into a pliable ball. You do not want it to be sticky but if you overdo the water, just gradually mix in a little more flour.
3. Place the dough ball on a clean, floured surface and knead for 5-10 minutes until the dough is smooth. Form it into a ball and place it in a large, lightly oiled bowl and cover with a clean tea towel or plastic wrap and set aside in a warm place or with an ambient temperature for at least an hour or until the dough has doubled in size. Don’t panic if it takes longer than an hour. Just leave it to prove as long as you need to until the dough has doubled in size.
4. Sprinkle some more flour on a clean surface and ‘knock back’ the dough by kneading again. If I am using spelt flour which is lower in gluten, I tend to only knead it gently to ensure a good second rise. At this point, weigh the dough and divide the weight into four balls. I always weigh each of these balls too, to make sure they are even in size.
5. Roll each ball between floured hands and flatten slightly. Place on a baking tray lined with baking paper, cover with a clean tea towel or oiled plastic wrap and leave for at least 20 minutes or until doubled in size. This may take up to 40 minutes to an hour.
6. Meanwhile, set your oven temperature to 230C/210C fan/450F/Gas 8. Brush the top of each roll with a little beaten egg and sprinkle with poppy seeds.
7. Bake rolls in the oven for 25-30 minutes** until golden brown and hollow-sounding when you tap on the base.
8. Leave on a wire rack to cool.
Enjoy!
COOK’S NOTES
* The ideal flour-to-water ratio for bread is 65 ml water to 100 g bread flour though ratios can vary and can be between 58 ml and 62 ml depending on the type of flour/grain you use.
For 8 rolls, double the ingredient quantities. So, for example, 500 g flour instead of 250 g, 2 tsp yeast, 1 tsp Kosher salt, 325 ml water.
If you do not want to bake the rolls immediately, you can place them in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours and then set aside to allow the dough to relax at room temperature and finish rising, before baking as normal. I find this method is also more tummy-kind.
** Remember oven temperatures vary and your bread rolls may take a little longer or shorter to bake so keep an eye on them in the last few minutes.
For floured rolls, omit the egg wash and poppy seeds and instead dust the tops with a little flour before baking. You can also vary the seed toppings with sesame seeds or multigrain seeds.
For savoury doughs, why not add some chopped olives, chopped sun-dried tomatoes, chopped rosemary or mixed seeds at Step 4?!
For a baguette or small loaf of bread knock back at Step 4 and then form into your baguette or loaf and leave to prove for 40 minutes to an hour or until doubled in size. Bake at Steps 6 and 7 for 30-35 minutes until golden brown and hollow-sounding.
For a large loaf, double quantities and bake as above for 45-55 minutes until golden brown and hollow-sounding.
Fairy cakes, little treats baked in paper cases and decorated perhaps with buttercream or glace icing and sugar flowers or sprinkles, are perfect for either a tea party or children’s party. They are really very similar to cupcakes, though a bit smaller and perfect for little fingers and a not-too-sinful indulgence for grown-ups too!
This is my go-to recipe for fairy cakes and if the kids are bored on a cold and rainy day, it is an activity they can be involved in too and which I can guarantee they will enjoy. These cakes are made with one whole free-range egg, a few tablespoons of whole milk and a few basic store-cupboard ingredients. I am using gluten-free all-purpose flour and a teaspoon of baking powder but please swap for regular all-purpose flour.
Ingredients(makes 8):-
For the cakes
85 g soft butter or baking spread
85 g caster sugar
1 large free-range egg, beaten
65 g gluten-free all purpose flour
20 g coconut flour (or dessicated coconut finely whizzed in the food processor)
1 tsp gluten-free baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
3-4 tbsp whole milk
Grated zest of one unwaxed lemon
For the glace icing
Icing (powdered) sugar
Lemon juice
Water
Sprinkles or other sugar decorations of your choice
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/350F/Gas Mark 4.
2. Place the butter or baking spread and caster sugar in a large bowl and either beat with an electric whisk or cream with a wooden spoon until light and fluffy.
3. Add a little of the beaten egg to the mixture and beat until fully combined. Sift in some of the flours and baking powder and beat, to prevent any curdling. Repeat with the remainder of the beaten egg and the flours and baking powder until everything is well-combined.
4. Carefully add 3-4 tablespoons of whole milk and stir into the cake batter slowly with a spatula until fully combined.
5. Add the grated lemon zest and the vanilla extract, carefully stirring until fully combined.
6. Place 8 standard cupcake cases in a 12-hole cupcake tin and divide the cake batter equally between them. Shake the tin to level out and place in the centre of the preheated oven for 15-18 minutes (oven temperatures vary). The cakes are ready when a skewer inserted comes out clean.
7. Remove the cakes from the oven and set the tin aside for 10 minutes or so and then remove the cakes from the tin and place on a wire rack to cool completely.
8. Meanwhile, make the glace icing. Sieve some icing sugar into a bowl with a squeeze of lemon juice and a few drops of filtered water and mix well with a tablespoon to a smooth consistency. You want it so you can trace a figure of eight in the bowl of icing when you hold the spoon above it. If the icing is too thick, add a little more liquid a few drops at a time. If the icing is too thick, add a little more sieved icing sugar.
9. Carefully spoon some icing sugar over the top of each fairy cake and decorate with sprinkles or other sugar decoration of your choice, such as sugared flowers, candied lemon zest, jelly beans or other dainty candies.
10. Place the fairy cakes on a platter and allow to the icing to set in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or so and then either transfer to the tea table or a cake tin to store if they are not being eaten immediately.
Cook’s notes:
1. If you like your cakes a little more generous, use a 6-hole cake tin and larger cupcake cases and divide the mixture between them. Allow up to 20 minutes baking time accordingly.
2. If your oven temperature tends to be hotter, try baking the cakes at 170C/150C fan/325F/Gas Mark 3 or whatever you find usually works for you.
3. These cakes can also be decorated with lemon or vanilla buttercream frosting and sugar decorations, or alternatively do them as old-fashioned butterfly cakes.
Every year in the UK, some 7 million tonnes of food and drink is thrown away, much of which is past their ‘best before’ date but would still be perfectly good to eat.
Approved Food is an online store in the UK owned by Morris & Son (Leeds) Ltd of Dodworth, South Yorkshire. With the tag line Waste less, save more, they specialise in food, drinks and a wide range of other items that are often near or past their ‘best before’ (not ‘use by’) dates by offering them at discounted prices, though they also sell many other products – for example, toiletries, pet food and household items – that are still comfortably in date but at lower prices than one might find at the supermarket. Nothing sold is past its USE BY date and they currently receive 4.66/5 in reviews.
Approved Food have over 2,000 products, many at huge discounts, including Big Brands such as Kellogg’s, Walkers and Hotel Chocolat; basic store cupboard essentials; and supermarket and department store products encompassing anything from food and alcoholic beverages to toiletries, gifts and more. Their regular customers typically save around £60 on their monthly shop compared to high street prices – a saving of over £700 per year. Stock on their website updates every day – all at heavily discounted prices – and there are often special daily promotions too.
Approved Food were featured on BBC Food Fighters in July 2011 and you can watch it here:-
In lab tests all food samples were clean and safe to eat.
However, I first discovered Approved Food in May 2023 following an article in the moneysavingexpert Martin Lewis weekly newsletter, which was offering free delivery on a first online order. The cheapest delivery is £3 via DX and upgrades are available at an extra cost, but £3 is still a saving, right?!
I personally have saved £321.63 since placing my first order based on one order every 4-6 weeks on average and tend to mostly buy cat food (which always has a USE BY between 2024 and 2026) and perhaps a few store cupboard top-ups. The website is quick and fairly easy to navigate and the daily bargains are prominently flagged up, meaning you can easily add any to your basket there right away. If a product is limited to a certain quantity per customer or if a very few of an item are remaining, then it will always say so. Products you add to your basket are reserved for an hour and if you take a while browsing and exceed this time frame then there may be items that you need to remove before proceeding to checkout, and it is at this stage when the site may occasionally become a little glitchy; with a little patience I have never had a problem proceeding to payment but generally these days my strategy is to have in my mind what I need before logging in, to avoid disappointment. Online orders received before 2pm will normally be delivered within 2-3 days by DX delivery and you will need to be at home to receive your order as they are not left at your address unattended. You will be notified by DX the day before your delivery and will be texted a two-hour slot the following morning, giving you the opportunity to change the day of your delivery if necessary to one more convenient for you.
Downsides? As with any site, a few minor niggles. Most notably, when browsing the categories or running a search the majority of items that usually first appear are crisps and candy and other sugar-laden things, and you may need to do some scrolling, but please don’t be discouraged by this. A little patience will be worth the effort and your wallet will thank you too!
As the global cost of living continues to bite, many of us find it increasingly important to have a supply of ingredients in our store cupboards that we can fall back on in case of any crisis, personal or more widespread, that may affect our ability to nourish and sustain ourselves and our loved ones (including our animals).
What would we do, for example, were there to be a sudden water contamination and our mains supply was unsuitable to drink? Are we concerned about the fluoridation of our water supply and its link to cognitive decline? What would we do were the water authority to turn off the supply in order to undertake essential mains works? This particular situation arose in our area in December last year and again in early 2023. When water is essential to our existence, I believe that having supplies of bottled water for everyday use and for emergencies is vitally important, as is maintaining a water butt or any other container outside to collect rainwater, if space allows.
If someone is suddenly coming to dinner and you don’t have an opportunity to hurry to the shops, or there is a more widespread supply problem for example, or the price of everything continues to escalate, how do you keep warm and put food on the table?
All these are questions we need to be thinking about and asking ourselves how we would deal with them and, indeed, anticipating them, not with the intention of inviting negativity to manifest itself but, in a more positive way, of being prepared for any eventuality and being in a position to provide for yourself and your household and loved ones, and perhaps being able to support your local community in some way, too, in the event of a crisis.
This is where budgeting, scratch cooking and emergency food prepping come into their own. There is a growing band of YouTubers such as myself focusing more on this area. As you may know, I have been sharing budget meals and self-sufficiency for a long while now, whether it be an inexpensive, wholesome lunch or supper, a 1940s-inspired recipe, or more recently fruit and vegetable gardening and the store cupboard. Here is one of my recent videos:-
Ocado Food Haul/Prepping the Pantry
Responding to the needs of my subscribers, I intend to focus more on budget meals and pantry prepping in the future as well as other areas of self-sustainability, such as gardening, foraging/free food, home-preserving, sprouting and fermenting, etc. One of my subscribers has asked me to feature more 1940s recipes as they feel that what we are all going through is akin to wartime living, as is the need to be ever more canny with what money we have, let alone put any aside for a rainy day which of course most of us aspire to.
Of course I will share some of my activities with you all, as well as my other content and trust that you might find it interesting and entertaining. However, if you don’t, no worries; it is a free world in my world!
I have started to participate in a couple of open collaborations with GrandmaSandy and others on YouTube, as well as seeking out other content creators who share my ideas and values and lifestyle choices. Grandma Sandy came across my @catevanscuisine channel some months ago and gave me a much-needed shout-out for which I am most grateful, and I am now paying it forward and giving a shout-out to a few of the wonderful YouTubers I subscribe to:-
September started well with beautiful warm, sunny weather right into the second week of the month, right up until we left for a week’s holiday in south-west Scotland. In fact, the temperatures were high enough that it was like being in the South of France, albeit more humid.
The herbs were doing well being in part sun-part shade, and I treated us to a new pot of garden mint from our local garden centre and which Dan potted up into a larger, terracotta pot so it has plenty of room to grow. My late mother had several mint bushes at the end of her garden and one of my favourite culinary memories growing up is of her homemade mint sauce to accompany Sunday lunch or cheap, slow cooked cuts of lamb. These days I use fresh mint leaves in a wide variety of ways including steeped in hot water as a healthful drink, raw in salads and chopped finely in vegetarian Indian and Middle Eastern recipes; mint is delicious in falafels or mixed with yoghurt as a dressing or dip.
August’s land cress had been eaten, thus I sowed some spinach seeds in the trough of my growing table at the start of the month. The seedlings are now starting to thrive as long as we manage to keep the slugs and snails off them.
The nasturtiums were only leafing but since we returned from holiday at the weekend more new flowers have appeared and more plants have started growing in the troughs. It is now the last week of September and Dan has already enjoyed some nasturtium leaves and petals in his lunchtime salads, though growth is now slowing as we head into early autumn.
2023 has been an excellent year for salad leaves in particular and we have enjoyed a wide variety of homegrown in salads and sandwiches. As well as the spinach seeds, I also sowed some more lettuce seeds in the troughs wherever there were gaps. As long as I start to cover them with fleece for frost protection they should keep growing all winter.
The kale is also flourishing and we have had some of it chopped and lightly steamed with leftovers left to ‘fester’ for a couple of days in the refrigerator with cooked potatoes and then fried as bubble and squeak, which we enjoy with fried free range eggs for breakfast or a simple supper.
Before we went on holiday, Dan picked all the beetroot and weed potatoes and we stored them in a cool place in hessian sacks. To be honest, the beetroot didn’t last long; some we ate roasted or steamed and I sliced and pickled some of the steamed ones for later on in the year, and others I gave to my piano teacher, Jake, and our cleaner friend Val, along with kale, beetroot tops (which are a good substitute for spinach and Swiss chard in recipes), potatoes and rhubarb.
In fact, since we have returned from Scotland the rhubarb has once again expanded and we may need to cut it back yet again. Our gardener Lorraine will move the rose bush in November, and will plant the one currently in a plant pot on my great-uncle’s grave. My lovely cousin Agnes gave me a fragrant yellow rose bush for my special birthday called “Golden Memories”, and Dan is going to plant it in the new designated area. All our rose bushes are traditional, sweet-smelling ones and should make a breathtaking display next summer. Recently, we have enjoyed several vases from the rose bushes that are already well-established. We may still also ask Lorraine to split the rhubarb crowns and plant ones elsewhere, perhaps at the end of the garden near the greenhouse, or perhaps we will give away what we cannot easily accommodate.
The quinces are swelling nicely on the tree, though some of the fruits have grown rotten on the bough. However, I have picked a few lovely ones already, as well as a couple of windfalls and we should have another excellent crop this year. I usually enjoy making jars of membrillo (traditional Spanish quince paste), which goes well with cheese, nut roasts and charcuterie. Sometimes I add quince pulp just as it is to a homemade nut roast and this year I am going to try adding some to marrow chutney.
The courgettes are still thriving and most have not been devoured by garden ‘pests’; in the space of a week one of the courgettes had become an enormous vegetable marrow! I cut a small piece off the marrow last night to put in our suppertime vegetable pasta bake and Dan’s salad lunch box for today, and most of it is still sitting enormously in our ‘fridge; later in the week, most of it will become chutney.
The tomatoes have cropped incredibly well this year, with no sign of the tomato blight that spoiled last year’s crop. Before our holiday, I made a tasty tomato sauce for pasta and other dishes and we had most of that last night in the pasta bake and I am having the rest to accompany my beanburger this evening, as Dan is staying overnight at his mum’s due to his work schedule. After supper, I will be making a big batch of tomato chutney, which I prepared earlier this afternoon and takes about an hour to cook on the stove.
Needless to say, we are looking forward to more tasty pickings as the month draws to a close and it will be interesting to see what October brings.
Early July started as June had ended with changeable weather. I was staying in Richmond-upon-Thames with my mother-in-law “MIL”, Verna, thus Dan was entirely in charge of the garden until he arrived to pick me up on the afternoon of 4th July. During my absence he had picked a few black raspberries that had ripened and some redcurrants, though the second batch of redcurrants we picked later on in July was a smaller one and sadly the whitecurrants amounted to nothing.
The Heritage beetroot were coming along well though their leaves were looking a little tatty but nothing a little plant food wouldn’t cure and they recovered well. By now in mid-August we have already picked a few; a few golden beet, a candy stripe, a white and a red one. A couple of them had been munched a little by slugs or snails but washed and with those bites chopped out they have been perfectly delicious chopped and lightly pickled in a drizzle of home-produced raw apple cider vinegar or grated salads, with their spinach-like leaves washed and shredded, added to salads and curries.
The “weed” potatoes have continued to flourish and earlier in July, Dan harvested some and we enjoyed these at mealtimes. Funnily enough, it looks like more of these plants are cropping up in other places in that bed so we may have a good potato harvest entirely by fluke!
The beans and peas produced a very small though delicious crop, despite being trampled on by our two adopted cats, Arthur and Miss Robyn Guinevere. Our senior boy, Merlin, appears to be more enlightened and leaves our crops alone though enjoys a wander or two in the garden and a rest on the patio most days; he was always more of a house cat in his nature.
Later in June of our elderly neighbours who lives further along the street had given us a courgette plant and some tomato plants and they had bedded in really well. We are growing a wide variety of tomatoes this year, from plum to salad varieties to cherry tomatoes perfect in salads or for snacking. Once I had returned from Richmond I stopped by for a chat and she invited me in to see her garden. She has a big birthday later this year yet shows no sign of discarding her green fingers, and her ability to be sustainable and grow all she needs is impressive. She has some really inventive methods of growing fruit and vegetables and not one area of her garden is an empty space but is well-utilized. I believe gardening helps to keep her positive and young at heart and she even has carefully thought-out areas for her beloved cat Monty to enjoy.
The blueberry plant is still young and there will be no crop this year, but it is thriving among the pine needles. The plant produced a single berry which we shared. It was full of flavour and we look forward to more next year.
The second crop of radishes failed miserably. They were flourishing in July and despite being thinned out, most failed to swell or develop. Perhaps it was the soil or the weather, or perhaps it was a combination of both. One reason for radishes not developing can be if the soil is too compact or if it contains excess nitrogen. The soil was loose enough and as we have usually grown radishes in the ground in previous years, we can only assume too much nitrogen was present in the soil and in future when growing radishes in containers we will add some mulch, which should help to rectify the problem.
The butterhead lettuces were a tasty success and were picked for salads during the course of July but the second batch of seeds did not produce the hoped-for rocket as we had a rainy spell towards the end of the month and the slugs and snails stripped the rocket and the underwhelming radishes bare, so all was lost, and the nasturtiums were looking glum though a few of those have rallied round after another plant feed.
Our Garden in July
The rhubarb has cropped amazingly well this year. We have picked rhubarb every month since May right up to about a week ago. Last year the crowns were new and it was important to leave them to settle in, so this year has been their first harvest. I have chopped a lot of the July and August rhubarb into 1″-2″ chunks and stored in a big bag in the freezer for future recipes, including pies and chutneys, so we can still enjoy it once summer is long gone.
We picked some of the Heritage beetroot and all of the speciality globe carrots, all of which were delicious. The beetroot crop comprises a wide variety of types; we have white, red, golden and candy stripe. They have been pickled, grated in salads and roasted as part of a main dish with other vegetables. It is now early September and I have cooked the last of what we had picked so it’s time to pull up some more! Stored correctly or preserved and pickled they should last us through the winter months.
In August I sowed some cut-and-grow salad leaves and some land cress. The land cress is all used up now, as are some of the fast-growing salad leaves, so I have sown some more leaves along with some spinach to keep us going for the next few weeks, as we eat salad for lunch every day.
Whilst making the August video we came across some wilded blackberries nestled among our redcurrant and black raspberry canes, a sheer delight! We love blackberries made into jam or in pies and crumbles, and they are also a good accompaniment to game, which Dan enjoys. We also enjoy them just as they are, freshly picked.
If you do not already grow any of your own produce, I hope our garden project has been inspiring you to give homegrown a try.The main thing to note is that home produce is of course at is freshest, can just be picked whenever it is needed and is way more flavourful than shop bought, which tends to be picked before it is ripe and is often stored or treated with chemicals or preservatives for a longer shelf life and therefore isn’t as fresh as homegrown or, say, foraged or purchased from a local farm shop for example. If you don’t object to finding pests in leaves and salad greens or having to wash the soil off your root vegetables, and if you have any amount of space to grow your own – even if it’s just a window box or a few plant pots or other containers – then I think homegrown is definitely the way to go.
Spring was late this year, we estimate most things are 2-3 weeks behind in growing time and despite some obvious challenges, it has not deterred us.
Dan and I have grown our own produce ever since we had our first flat together in Isleworth 16 years ago, though I personally have been growing fruit and vegetables since the mid-1990s after I left my long-term partner at the time and moved into a rented house in South Derbyshire. The property had a garden with a greenhouse and a lawn, and a shared accessway with my neighbours in the small row of railway cottages we occupied.
I started off with tomatoes and bell peppers in the greenhouse and soon discovered I had ‘green fingers’ as the space became full and I would engage in exchange and barter schemes with a couple of my neighbours who had allotments across the road from the cottages. Those allotments were on fertile land by the canal and there was a long waiting list but in any case in those days I worked full-time and therefore did not have sufficient time to invest in a large growing project, but the seeds were sown and I had fallen in love with gardening and the whole ethos behind home-produced.
Over the winter months of 2022/23 in the midst of the global cost-of-living crisis and mindful of the need for tightening our money belts, Dan and I spent some time discussing and planning what we would grow this year in an effort to become even more sustainable and self-sufficient. Although we grew a variety of fruit and vegetables last year, we knew our garden was capable of accommodating more, even with one of our two raised beds being purposely left fallow for the whole growing season to allow the soil to regain its nutrients. The continuous growing of crops eventually depletes the soil of certain nutrients, resulting in the fall in crop yield. This means that manure or fertilizers need to be added to the soil in order to replenish it with the nutrients it has lost.
There are a number of disadvantages of adding fertilizers to soil. Expensive to buy, they they are easily washed away by water and reduce the fertility of the soil. Also, they harm the microbes naturally present in soil and cause pollution. In general, fertilizers provide only a short-term fix as they also tend to change the nature of the soil, making it either too acidic or too alkaline, although some plants may thrive in one or the other. For example, blueberries must grow in acid (ericaceous) soil or potting compost with a pH value of 4.5-5.5. Our blueberry plant is happy in a corner of our garden near our quince tree among a nest of pine needles.
Over winter I ordered four wooden self-assembly ‘growing tables’ (80 x 40 x 75 cm). Made from 100% FSC sustainably sourced wood, the design comprises a trough on legs for easy-working height with a shelf underneath, from Homebase and these cost around £37 each, although the price has since gone up to £45. These I had home-delivered and Dan put them together, two for our patio and two for our greenhouse. We then lined the troughs with black membrane and filled them with topsoil. Two have since collapsed due to warpage, and so far Dan has mended one of them and we have some plastic troughs on the patio containing various salad goodies. We store and thoroughly wash and reuse all our pots and other growing containers until they fall apart, so fortunately when the tables collapsed we had other containers ready to hold the plants that had endured a nasty shock.
My main project is tending the herb garden and the salad goodies while Dan focuses on the rhubarb, the soft fruit and the vegetables in the other raised bed which needs heavy digging and with my back problems is something I am not capable of, though I do help out from time to time.
We sowed and propagated a variety of lettuce and tomato seeds indoors throughout March as the weather was still too cold to sow directly into the raised bed or any container outside, and more seeds – jalapeno, salad leaves, bell peppers = were sown indoors in early April as the weather continued to be disappointing, but finally they were ready to go outside and by the time King Charles III was coronated nasturtiums, cut-and-come again salad leaves (which were ready for harvesting) and radishes in the growing tables, more lettuce seedlings in a trough and in the greenhouse tomato plants growing well and the salad leaves, chillis and peppers sown back in April propagating in egg boxes.
We use no chemical pesticides or other chemicals on our crops but to deter slugs and snails we scatter broken-up egg shells, oatmeal or sharp sand which act as a natural deterrent, although this method is by no means foolproof. It is however kinder to creatures and the environment and ultimately our digestive systems.
The kale seeds we had sown directly in the ground in March was flourishing. Although primarily intended to provide us with a good source of nutrients during the ‘hungry gap’ period of January and February next year, later in May we were able to harvest some of the young leaves to chop finely for salads. Next to be sown directly into the ground were carrots, parsnips and Heritage beetroot, beans and peas, which would provide a variety of colours and flavours during the summer.
Two or three ‘weed potato’ plants had sprung forth. These are plants that grew out of last year’s potato crop when we had probably overlooked a few potatoes in the ground during harvesting. This seems to happen most years and the potatoes are always delicious and perfectly formed with no blight or tunnelling. A happy accident, one might say.
In the herb garden we had garlic, lavender and rosemary all growing well in pots and there was rhubarb ready for picking.
The blueberry bush we bought last year was faring reasonably well though needed repotting, though of course in the end we planted it in the ground. The quince tree provided us with a good harvest last year and was once more coming into leaf after a long winter and the black raspberry bushes and redcurrants and whitecurrants were also flourishing although we did not expect a harvest until later in June or July due to a late spring so to celebrate the Coronation, Dan was perfectly happy with a dressed crab salad containing the first of our tender, homegrown salad leaves. You can see the recipe video here:-
The month of June started with similarly mixed weather and variable results, and certain of the salad goodies were not thriving as they ought, especially the radishes which were stunted in growth and spongy and eventually I pulled them up and sowed a fresh quantity of seeds in their place. The second of the growing tables also collapsed.
The butterhead lettuces I had planted were a delight and we enjoyed them in our daily salads along with some of the nasturtium flowers and leaves that were thriving; some of them were not so these too were pulled up to make way for fresh salad goodies.
The Heritage beetroot were also beginning to flourish and we started to look forward to the time (a bit later in the year) when they would be ready to pick perhaps for a colourful beetroot salad – red, candy stripe and golden – along with some soft goat’s cheese, its creamy saltiness balancing out the sweet earthiness of the beetroot, a union of perfection with a zingy red wine vinegar dressing dancing on the tongue.
Our rhubarb was still growing lavishly. We had started harvesting it in modest quantities since early May, simply picking as much as we needed, and this continued throughout June month. A poached rhubarb compote spiked with orange juice and root ginger and finished with a drizzle of honey was a simple and healthy pudding served with some full-fat Greek yoghurt.
The carrots, peas and beans were all coming up and the black raspberries were well on their way for picking, and we started harvesting at the end of June, along with the first of the redcurrants.
The young kale we had planted earlier in the year we thinned out in June to encourage abundant growth, and the tender leaves were chopped finely and added raw to salads. Kale is a nutrition superstar literally packed with goodies; vitamins A, B6, C, K, folate, fibre, carotenoids and manganese and you can eat it every day in moderation for a real boost to your health and wellbeing and a strong immune system. Believe it or not, one single, 100g serving of kale provides over 100% of your daily intake of vitamin C, which helps to reduce the risk of cataracts. Kale also provides a rich source of tlutein and zeaxanthin, antioxidants that lessen the risk of macular degeneration and other age-related eye diseases.
In the greenhouse the bell peppers and tomatoes were in good condition. We had started spraying the leaves every five weeks with half a soluble asprin added to water in a bottle (a tip I learned from watching “Countryfile”), which helps to protect against blight. Potato plants, roses and most other plants can also be sprayed in the same way to protect against diseases.
Thus, only the salad greens were conspicuous in their lacklustre, but I was resolute in my determination to succeed.
My Creamy Spiced ‘Marigold’ Soup isn’t made with any flowers at all but its attractive orange hue reminds me of the pretty African Marigolds growing in our front garden as a young girl growing up in Zambia. We lived there while my father carried out his two-year contract at the University of Lusaka and my mother was Secretary to the Bursar there. We returned to the UK in June 1971 when political and social unrest was beginning to make life increasingly difficult for the expatriate community.
This soup recipe is easy and packs a punch, taking around 15-20 minutes to prepare depending on how large or small you chop your root vegetables and using hot stock will also help things along. I have used carrots, turnip and sweet potato but you could substitute the sweet potato with squash or pumpkin, for example, as they belong to the same family of vegetables. If you avoid spicy food or are making it for people who have plainer tastes or who are unwell, you can still make this soup but omit the spices. For extra creaminess try adding a splash of coconut milk instead of cream and keep it vegan!
Ingredients (serves 4)
1 tbsp coconut or other oil
1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cubed
2 large carrots, peeled and chopped
1 small white turnip, peeled and chopped
1 celery stick, diced
1 white onion, diced
1 garlic clove, chopped finely
1 tsp curry powder (optional)
1 tsp cumin (optional)
1 tsp turmeric (optional)
2 cm piece root ginger, chopped
a good pinch of chilli flakes (optional)
1 litre vegetable stock, or vegetable water (eg left over from steamed vegetables)
1 bay leaf
Sea salt and pepper
Splash of single cream or coconut milk (optional)
Method
Scoop one tablespoon of coconut oil into a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over a medium heat and when it has melted, turn the heat right down and add the diced onion and celery adding a little sea salt and sweat them down for a few minutes. Be careful not to let them brown, they only need to be softened. Add the chopped garlic and stir through to combine.
Add the curry powder, chilli flakes and other spices (if using) and stir quickly through the softened onion, garlic and celery, then add the other vegetables, stirring everything together to thoroughly combine.
Turn up the heat a little and pour in the hot vegetable stock or vegetable water and the bay leaf and bring to the boil, then simmer until all the vegetables are cooked through, adjusting the heat if necessary.
Remove the saucepan from the heat and allow to cool slightly, remove the bay leaf and then whizz with a stick blender until smooth.
Return to a low heat, add a good splash of cream or coconut milk to your liking and check and adjust the seasoning with a sprinkle of salt and freshly ground pepper if necessary.
Ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with a sprinkling of fresh chopped parsley or coriander and perhaps a small swirl of coconut milk or cream and serve with crusty bread.
Bon appetit!
COOK’S NOTES
Omit the garlic if you do not like it
You can make this soup with pre-cooked root vegetables or leftovers, which will speed up the cooking time.
If you love coriander, add a teaspoon of ground coriander seeds at stage 2.
If you do not have any root ginger, a teaspoon of ginger powder or dried galangal will work just as well.
If you do not like spicy soup, make it without some or all of the spices but try adding 1 tbsp tomato puree or tomato ketchup
If the soup is too thick, add a little water at stage 5.
For the stock, if you are not using homemade stock then it may be made with water and a stock cube or 1 teaspoon of vegan Vegetable Bouillon. Use no more than 1 tsp Buillon to 1 litre of water as it is very salty.
Catherine Evans 