cuttings

I am trying my luck at propagation by taking cuttings.  There is a very healthy rosemary bush in the front garden, which has survived even the harshest winter temperatures of the past couple of years.

As there are large areas of my garden and orchard which are pretty wild and unkempt, I had an idea that some rosemary hedges might be a quick, cheap and easy way to spruce up those areas.

So one of the garden jobs for today was to pot up some cuttings that I took about a week ago, which have been sitting in a jar of water on the kitchen windowsill.  If it works, I hope to have around 25 plants from this lot of cuttings to plant out later in the year.

Reinvigorating the herb patch

After these few days of milder weather I took the opportunity to get out into the garden again this weekend.  The hard frosts have helped to break up the soil in the veg patch.  At this time of year, the weed roots are at their weakest, so it is the best time to attempt to remove as much as possible of the roots from my herb patch.  The most prolific weed invaders are nettles, broad leaf dock, thistles and common mallow.  Mallow is actually a pretty hedgerow plant, with purple-pink flowers in the summer.  Best let it stay in the hedgerow!

The nettles send out long root shoots, whereas the docks and mallow have deep tap roots which can be extremely well embedded and hence removing them can be hard physical work.  I have in the past found that it is a mistake though to avoid the job, as these weeds can out-compete the perennial herbs very rapidly once the weather starts to warm up.

So, I rolled up my sleeves and got out there in the winter sunshine all day today, to do battle with the mallow roots, cut back the perennial herbs, and to take some cuttings to propagate additional plants.

Once the old growth was removed and the majority of the weeds had been dug or pulled out, I cut the herbs right back to encourage healthy young shoots in the spring.  In the picture above there are lots of fennel plants, which have self-seeded.  Some people find these a nuisance as they grow very fast and can take over....I have been relatively ruthless with the removal of some of the new plants, and hacked back the old ones right to the ground.  I use fennel a lot in summer cooking, and I think the feathery leaves and yellow flowers are very attractive, besides which these plants definitely give the weeds a run for their money!

Also well established is a patch of 'Good King Henry', and again, this is a love it or hate it plant.  It can grow like a weed and indeed is thought of as a pesty invader by some.  But it has its culinary uses, with the young spinachy-like leaves being excellent in summer salads.  In fact, it can be used pretty much in as many varied ways as spinach, but once established, requires very little tending.  I think the trick is to eat loads of it so that it never has a chance to dominate in the herb patch.

The next step will be to order some mulch to put around these and the other perennials, to inhibit weed growth.  

View from my window

What a glorious day it was today, and here is the view from my kitchen window just before sun-down this evening:

Cabbage for fussy eaters

I don't pander much to fussy eaters, but when it comes to cabbage, I think a bit of imagination goes along way to aiding the eating of greens.  With a crispy fresh savoy cabbage to hand, and armed with a couple of apples and a handful of walnut pieces, I set about the art of persuading the reluctant youth of the house that cabbage really IS good to eat.

Ingredients
Savoy cabbage
2 apples
a handful of walnut pieces
butter
pepper

The method is simple: chop and wash the cabbage, peel and dice the apple, and steam for about 5 minutes or so, ensuring that a certain crunchiness is maintained. I chucked in the nuts at the last stage, just to warm through, and served with a bit of pepper and butter.

Result? well, let's just say, I will have to keep trying with other cabbage inventions, but I thought it was scrumptious.

A pot of marmalade!

Here it is, 'still life with marmalade'...the two day marmalade method seems to have worked just fine, and it set quite well too...

Potato Dumplings

I have called these by their English name as that makes it easier to know what it is, but I have to say that I just love the German word for dumplings:  Knödel.   It just sounds to me like the culinary equivalent of a cuddle, and, like the best comfort food, it feels that way when you eat it too.

I have a habit of cooking far too much whenever I make mashed potato.  Whilst wracking my brains over what to experiment with this time, the smell of the venison soup that I had just made was wafting through the kitchen.  The smell, which is a little bit livery with a strong tinge of juniper, transported me straight back to a mountain hut in Austria which we visited many times when skiing there.  The hut was probably an old mountain shelter, or a 'Heidi hut' in the summer, now operating as a tiny little restaurant which served very hearty home-style food to hungry skiers.  The smell of my venison hotpot prompted a very strong recollection of eating a delicious type of Knödel which I think is sometimes made with potatoes as well as flour.  We ate this type of Knödel served in a thin meaty stock soup, a little reminiscent of my venison soup, at that dreamy mountain hostelry.  So I decided to just have a go with my left over mash to see if I could transform it into something vaguely similar.

The ingredients are approximate as I was experimenting.  In time I will repeat the experiment with more attention to the precise weights and proportions of the ingredients.

Spicy carrot and sweet potato soup

Yes, yet another soup, for this weekend.  It took all of 10 minutes to throw the ingredients into the big pan, then off we went for a long hike on the Ridgeway, for several hours, whilst the soup cooked slowly in the Rayburn, awaiting our ravenous return.

Apple and Walnut Bake

This was the speediest apple pud I could think of, and unlike apple crumble or pie, really not too heavy to have after a big Sunday roast..

Ingredients

3 or 4 big Bramley apples

a few handfuls of walnuts

a couple of heaped tablespoons of dark brown sugar

2 teaspoons of cinnamon powder

grated nutmeg

I peeled and sliced the apples then sprinkled all the other ingredients evenly over the top, and baked in a moderate oven until the apple slices were soft and tender, a sort of 'al dente' texture, so that the slices didn't collapse into a mush.

Good with fresh custard, natural yogurt, cream, or just as is..

Venison Soup

I had not clocked just how often I make soups and hot pots, until I started to write this blog.  I think the average is probably at least once a week, often more, especially when it is very cold and everyone in the household is busy.  Over the past week or so the temperature has dropped as low as -10⁰C, but as we are not snowed in this year, there has been no let up in the daily routine.

So, a good hearty pot of soup has been on the go throughout the weekend and into the week, which means less cooking for me, and happy family too.

This venison soup benefits from a long, slow cook, with a good few hours of marinating first.  It is low fat and low cholesterol too.

Ingredients
500g diced venison
1/2 litre of fino (dry) sherry
15 crushed juniper berries
5 bay leaves
large sprig of rosemary
black peppercorns (approx 10-15, if you like it peppery)
2 big onions
2 big cloves of garlic
about 10-15 large mushrooms
a couple of tablespoons of plain flour
2-3 heaped teaspoons of Coleman's English mustard power
1 to 2 litres of beef stock or water
olive oil

Marinate the venison with the sherry, juniper berries, bay leaves and peppercorns for several hours or overnight.

Two-day marmalade

Despite all good intentions, daily posts seem to have eluded me so far.....But I did manage to make marmalade this week.  The traditional 'by the book' methods look really intimidatingly time-consuming and messy.  No doubt the traditionalists will frown on my working-mum method.. But I feel a degree of satisfaction that I even attempted it so feel the urge to share it with the world....
The trick, I found, was to plan in advance, and to spread the work over a couple of days, having accumulated the ingredients and jam jars over the past week or so.  The ingredients given below are based on 1 kg of fruit, which will make around 10 jars of marmalade.  I used 2 kg, which turned out to be rather a large amount, filling completely my jam pan.  It's a good idea to be sure that your pan is big enough before embarking on this recipe, remembering that the end stage involves boiling the mixture to setting point, which will get very messy if the pan is overly full.

Pre-planning:

Essential Equipment:
Jam pan (thick-bottomed pan with wide sides...I have learnt from past mistakes that using a normal pan is a really really awful mistake..trust me, scraping burnt sugary mixture off the bottom of your favourite saucepan is not fun)
Jam jars, clean and sterilised (hot wash in the dishwasher does the trick)
jam pot covers and wax sealing circles
weighing scales
sharp knife
electric citrus juicer (can be juiced by hand, but that will scupper most multi-tasking working mums I reckon, and possibly cause a blister or two...)
measuring jug and ladle
long-handled wooden spoon
muslin square and kitchen string
jam thermometer (not strictly essential, but makes life a whole lot easier)

Ingredients:
1kg seville oranges
3.5 litres water
2.5 kg preserving sugar or jam sugar (the latter has added pectin, which may make it set better)
4 lemons

Day 1
I did this bit first thing in the morning before work, and it took me about half an hour.

Squeeze the oranges, put juice in fridge, and tie up the pips in the muslin.
Slice the orange peel finely (or less so, if you prefer a course marmalade)
Put the sliced orange peel and muslin bag of pips into the jam pan with the water and leave to soak for 24 hrs or more.  Meanwhile, go to work etc...

Day 2
Early morning:
First thing in the morning, simmer the orange and water mixture with the muslin bag of pips in until the peel is tender.  Remove muslin pip bag.  Add the sugar, stir in, turn off the heat, and leave to dissolve.  At this stage, I removed the pan from the hot hob and left it all day whilst working.

Evening:
In the evening, put all the jam jars in the dishwasher on a hot wash to sterilise.
Make sure all the sugar has dissolved (no crunchy bits lurking at the bottom of the pan), which may require heating gently for a while, whilst stirring.  Add the orange juice, plus squeezed juice of the lemons.

Bring to the boil, and boil rapidly until setting point is reached.  Stir so that the sugary mixture doesn't burn on the bottom of the pan. This is the stage that requires focus, and is definitely NOT the time to be multi-tasking.

How do I know that it has reached 'setting point'?
I cannot do better than recommend 'Jam, Preserves and Chutneys' by Marguerite Patten (first published by Bloomsbury, 1995), which has a very clearly explained section on the various ways of testing for setting point.  This is another of my essential kitchen books, and everything I know about jam setting comes from it.

First, look for the 'rolling boil'...this is when the bubbles become larger and more regular, and roll out from the middle of the pan.  At this stage, I would really recommend the use of a jam thermometer, especially if you haven't made jam or marmalade before, as it makes the test for setting point quite straightforward.  Put the jam thermometer into the centre of the mixture (DO NOT let it touch the bottom of the pan as this will give a false reading).  Setting point should be at 105⁰C.  


There are other methods, the only one which I have used in the past being the cold plate test.  Put a plate in the fridge to cool, and when the mix reaches the rolling boil stage, take the plate out, and put a small amount of mixture onto the plate.  When it cools, if it forms a skin on top which wrinkles when pushed with the edge of a spoon, it should be around setting point.  This method is one that requires a bit of trial and error, and I made many mistakes with early attempts at jam (ranging from rock hard toffee-like cherry jam, to liquid slop for plum jam...).  So, if you can lay your hands on a jam thermometer, it may mean the chance of a successfully set marmalade are somewhat better.


When setting point has been reached, remove from hob and leave to cool a little.


Take hot (so they don't crack with the heat of the marmalade) clean jars from dishwasher.  When mix is a bit less hot, stir to distribute peel evenly then fill up the jars.  Put wax jam circles on, then make seal with the jam pot covers and elastic bands (if you haven't done this before there ought to be instructions on the pack of jam covers...).