Happy new year!

Another year. They keep whizzing around faster and faster these years. They seemed to go much slower when I was younger. Anyway, the mild winter in the UK continues, the banana trees are still not wrapped up and the garden still looks reasonably green. I wonder if we'll get any snow this winter? At the moment it doesn't look likely...

We've just come back from a lovely holiday in Dorset and looking through our holiday snaps, I thought I'd cheat a little and upload some photos of flowers, insects and animals that we've spotted in other gardens and in the countryside over the past year, not in Cowick Garden. Here are a few...

Long overdue update

Last year September to November were among the busiest months on the blog but this year things took a very different turn and those months were among the quietest, without even a single post in both October and November! And that's not because there was nothing happening in Cowick Garden Cafe, on the contrary, we've been very busy. I must confess I let other commitments get in the way of the blog but hopefully I will make amends over the coming weeks.

There's quite a lot to update you on and quite a lot of recipes to upload too! This year was a very good year for vegetables but not such a good year for fruit. Sadly, we had very few apples this winter, not only did many of them rot on the tree, but there were also far fewer than last year to begin with. That was very disappointing. Although we did make some comforting apple crumble as well as a delicious new recipe by Nigel Slater - caramelised apples with apple ice-cream. Delicious! 

Another bit of disappointing news is that we had to say bye bye to the blackberry bush. It became infected with almost every single pest and disease that has ever visited Cowick Garden. It became the hub of pest life, where they all congregated to discuss their next plan of attack and in the process they ravaged and ransacked the poor blackberry bush. Blackberries are normally hardy plants but it didn't stand a chance against the force of all the pests in town.

We're thinking of replacing that patch where Black Berry used to live with a flowering creeper. It will be good to have some flowers near the vegetable patch to attract more bees and helpful insects. We haven't decided what plant yet but as we'll only plant it in spring there's still time to decide. If anyone knows of a good flowering creeper to plant near vegetables, please let me know.

We hardly had any nectarines this year either and very few strawberries. However, this is the first year that we've planted strawberries and apparently they always produce very little in their first year, so next year should be better.

Anyway, enough of all the bad news. Now for some good news. The tomatoes and chillies were our biggest success. We had so many! We made so many spicy pasta sauces, tomato soups, oven-roasted tomatoes, bruschettas, that at one point we had no place to store everything in our tiny fridge. The beetroots were a success too though the slugs and snails did help themselves to the leaves every night. At least not to the extent where it prevented the root from growing so we had a number of beetroots to enjoy over several weeks. The spring onions did well too and so did our parsnips. 

We only dug the parsnips out of the ground yesterday as they can stay in the soil well into the autumn, up until the first frosts apparently. Interestingly, our parsnips didn't quite resemble the neat-shaped parsnips you find in the shop. On the contrary ours looked like mutant creatures from another galaxy. Didn't stop them from tasting good though. We made some spicy parsnip soup with many of them last night and that's what's for dinner tonight!

More photos and updates coming soon. It's good to be back!

Spicy tomato soup

So we've had spicy tomato sauce and now it's time for spicy tomato soup. Basically what that means is we're not keeping up with all our chillies and tomatoes. We haven't even had time to make our celebratory beetroot and chocolate cake yet because of all the tomatoes. We're not complaining though and enjoyed a very spicy soup in our very windy garden this afternoon.

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil
1 spring onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 red chilli, seeds removed and chopped* (add 2 small chillies if you're feeling brave)
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin powder
1 tbsp tomato paste
1,5 kg fresh tomatoes, blanched and chopped
200ml vegetable stock
Basil leaves, to serve

Method

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium to low heat. Add the onion and stir until it becomes soft.
2. Add the garlic, chilli, coriander, cumin and tomato paste and stir for approximately a minute.
3. Add chopped tomatoes and bring to the boil.
4. Reduce heat to low, partially cover pot with lid and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occassionally
5. Puree the soup in a blender.
6. Return to the pot and add a little to all of the vegetable stock depending on how thick you want the soup to be. Our tomatoes had a lot of juice in them so I didn't add much of the stock.
7. Stir slowly until hot again and add salt and pepper to taste.
8. Serve into bowls and add basil leaves.
9. Bon appetit!


*Useful tip: Remember to wash hands well after chopping the chillies. You can also rub a bit of olive oil over your hands too as that will get rid of any remaning chilli on your fingers. Don't, like me, absent-mindedly touch your face after chopping the chillies. You'll be crying into your tomato soup!

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday Cowick Garden Cafe. One year old today! In celebration we'll be baking a chocolate and beetroot cake. Recipe coming soon!

Simply spicy pasta sauce

We've just come back from a few days in the very hot city of Rome (39 degrees C!) Inspired by the heat and all the delicious Italian food we ate, as well as an abundance of tomatoes in the greenhouse and some very red chillies on the kitchen window sill upon our return, we decided to put together a simple tomato pasta sauce. Our Italian friends in Rome gave us this very easy recipe and said that the essence of Italian food is simplicity. So here is our very simple spicy pasta sauce:

Ingredients

3 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 red chillies, finely choppped
6 large tomatoes, chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper


Method

1. Pour the olive oil into a pan and add the crushed garlic.
2. Cook on a medium heat until the garlic turns golden and then add the chillies.
3. After a couple of minutes add the chopped tomatoes.
4. Bring to a simmer and then cook for approximately 45 minutes or until the sauce starts to thicken.
5.Add salt and pepper to taste and serve with your favourite pasta.
6. Bellissimo!

Creamy courgette and chilli pasta

This recipe was inspired by a good friend who said she adapted the mangetout tagliatelle stir-fry recipe by adding  some fennel (from Cowick Garden) and courgettes to it. I thought this was an excellent idea and so we tried our own version of it last night. It was delicious. We added our first red chilli from the garden too!

Ingredients 
2 medium courgettes, grated
150g peas
1 spring onion
2bsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 red chilli, finely chopped
8 tbsp single cream
250g tagliatelle
Parmesan cheese, grated
Fennel leaves

Method
1. Cook the tagliatelle in a pot of boiling water and steam the peas.
2. While the pasta and peas are cooking, add the oil, garlic and chillies to the frying pan over a low to medium heat and stir together for a few minutes.
3. Add the grated courgettes to the chilli garlic and mix together well. After a few minutes add the cream and continue stirring.
4. When the courgettes have turned into a green creamy mixture and feel very soft, add the peas and then the pasta and toss well.
5. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese and garnish with fennel leaves.
6. Enjoy with a glass of good French wine!

Sunny Garden Cafe