Came back from holiday to find a bumper crop of plum tomatoes on the allotment. They are so sweet our baby Tilly, 14 months old, loves munching them straight from the vine.
We have so many we need to preserve some, so here are two things we’ve been doing with them:
1) Making tomato sauce for freezing, and using in pasta sauces etc. Thanks to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Cookbook for this tip. Cut the tomatoes in half and roast them in the oven with a clove or two of garlic and a little bit of olive oil. Then I skin them once roasted and sieve the roasted tomatoes. The pulp goes on the compost heap and the sauce goes in the freezer. It tastes almost as good as…
2) Roast Tomato Soup. From ‘Stones Spells for Magic Feasts’, a veggie cookbook from a cafe in Avebury, Wiltshire - near the stone circle.
Again, halve and roast the tomatoes with garlic and onion, scattered with oregano and basil (we used dried mixed herbs and fresh basil). When skins start to blaken, pulp in the Magimix. Put the puree in a pan with some red wine (we skipped that with no ill-effects), stock and tomato puree. Whisk to combine, reheat gently on the stove and then stir in some cream or fromage frais (we used double cream) when it simmers. Just delicious.
Written by giles on August 16th, 2006 with 5 comments.
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I don’t mean to spoil what is left of the summer by raising the spectre of the cold, damp, dark, depressing months to come, but it is time to start thinking ahead and preparing the ground for what will fill the spaces left by the potatoes, courgettes, corn and so on once they’ve all been pulled up, harvested and gone.
Of course, to be sure of having plants to fill these spaces, the preparation needs to have started some months ago when the seed should have been sown in modules. In spite of my best intentions, however, I have once again not managed to produce my own brassica or leek seedlings and am in danger of having an empty plot over the winter months and an empty larder next spring.
Am I despairing? Certainly not. All is not lost. I have not got this far in life without discovering that there are few disasters that can’t be repaired by going shopping and if you happen to find yourself in the same boat as me then read on and rejoice.
There are plenty of safety nets out there for allotmenteers as unskilled or disorganised as me, or for those who have recently taken on plots and need plants quickly to fill recently cultivated beds. Delfland Nurseries caters for those of us who try to be organic by providing plug plants and seedlings all year round, and at reasonable prices (no, I’m not on commission). True, it will always be cheaper to grow your brassicas from seed yourself, but at £1.50 for 5 cabbages, they’re still pretty reasonable. Alternatively, Dobies are tried and tested (though not, I think organic) and seem to get good results - we had some lovely over-wintering onions from them last year.
So, a plot full of healthy, thriving vegetables with minumum effort. What more could you want?
Written by Pumpkinsouper on August 16th, 2006 with 1 comment.
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