Judging by the number of chutney recipes books I sold this week, the preserve season is definitely in mid-flow. It was good timing then, to be invited to a local gardening club on Tuesday evening to give my talk "What to do with the stuff once you're grown it". I spoke about jam and chutney making of course, but also how to use up fruit and vegetables in a variety of different ways so as not to get sick of it. I had my recipe books and some of my jams and chutneys available for sale too that evening and most people went away with something in their hands as well as a few more ideas in their heads, I hope.

Hopefully, I'll sell a few more books and preserves tomorrow too when I go to the first fete of the season. As it happens, I'll be selling the last few jars of last year's stock as my current preserves are in boxes awaiting their pretty labels before they will be ready for sale.

One way or another it has been a week of busy evenings. Monday was OK, then out on Tuesday to the gardening club. My mum came over to dinner on Wednesday so she could drop off a few plants for me to look after whilst she's on holiday for two weeks. The girls were particularly interested to see the orange pips and peach stones in a jar that she had managed to get to germinate. Oh, that stem of lemongrass I stuck in a jar sprouted its first root this week by the way.

Despite it being midweek, I still thought I ought to make an effort to make a special dinner so after collecting the girls from school we went round to the allotment to gather a few more windfall apples to make an apple crumble. Whilst we were there we also gathered a few bean, mini corn and a diddy little cauliflower. Back at home, my youngest helped me make the apple crumble then I put some potatoes in the oven to bake and some gammon on the hob to boil then squeezed in a quick bath before Mum arrived. It was a lovely meal and tasty dessert.

Thursday night my eldest had her first karate lesson. All very well except the class runs from 5.30 to 6.15pm, which clashes with the time I'm usually making dinner. When she had asked if she could do the lessons we had decided it would only work if I dropped her off and Steve picked her up on his way back from work. Unfortunately, Steve was out at a meeting and didn't get back in time for his part of the arrangements so just for once I found myself drawn to the Chinese restaurant outside the class. Well, sometimes you just have to!

With everyone stuffed with Chinese take-away Thursday evening, there was still crumble left over after dinner Friday, which was handy. But with me being out most of Saturday I figured I wouldn't have time to make something for dessert on Saturday. So after dinner I made some lemon and lime cheesecakes. I came across this recipe a couple of weeks ago and it's fantastic - so simple you can make it in about 20 minutes or slightly longer if you choose to make it with the help of a child or two. I think it has a lot of potential for some fiddling with to make some different flavours so watch this space.

Lemon & Lime Cheesecakes (makes 4 individual ones)

1 and half oz butter

6 digestive biscuits

1 lemon

1 lime

250g tub marscapone cheese

1 and half oz icing sugar

Melt the butter. Crush the biscuits in a blender or in a bag hit with a rolling pin. Mix together the biscuit crumbs and butter then press the crumbs into 4 small dishes or large glasses. Refrigerate the dishes whilst you make the topping. Grate the zest off the lemon and squeeze out its juice. Grate some of the zest off the lime but do not use all of it unless you particularly like lime flavour. Squeeze out the juice of the lime. Mix the cheese, juices and sugar together until smooth. Dollop the cheese mixture onto the biscuit bases and smooth. Refrigerate and serve chilled.

A deep freeze juggling act

There is something magical about this time of year when there is such an abundance of food ready to pick from the plot. I can quite understand why people have historically held harvest festivals at this time of year. I too feel the urge to give thanks (not quite sure to who or what) for the gluts of tasty fruit and veg. I could quite easily burst into song too!

Yet, at the same time, it can also be somewhat overwhelming. Nobody needs 16 cucumbers a week, or 8 courgettes and several pounds of apples. You can feel yourself beginning to drown in the stuff, wondering which form of preserving to turn to next. On Saturday, with the help of my girls (who were feeling particularly obliging), we harvested the onions, shallots and garlic. With the courgettes and cucumbers from a few weeks ago, a few plums and the windfall apples I now have all the main ingredients required for making chutney. But as chutney making is a stinky business that causes offense in my household, it is something I can only do in peace during the week and only one type a day so it's not an instant solution. And "instant" is what windfall apples and pass their best plums demand. So freezing would seem the better option (at least for those things that can be frozen).

Unfortunately, my chest freezer is neither huge nor empty. It is, apart from the more useful day to day meal items, largely occupied by the summer's soft fruits, all waiting patiently to be jammed. So in order to put something in it, such as chopped plums or cooked apples, I have first to remove something from it. The first to go this week was a bag of blackcurrants to be converted into blackcurrant cordial. I have made cordial before from blackcurrants but I found a recipe from Olive magazine http://info.olivemagazine.co.uk/ for blackcurrant and lemongrass cordial. So, having purchased 4 lemongrass sprigs from Tesco, I used 3 of them with the blackcurrants to make the cordial. And very tasty it was too, the lemongrass adding a refreshing citrus undertone. The fourth sprig of lemongrass I have popped into a jar of water to see if I can get it to root (these things amuse me!).

Blackcurrant and Lemongrass Cordial

500g blackcurrants (thawed, if frozen)

3 lemongrass stalks

300ml water

300g granulated sugar

Finely chop the lemongrass and place it in a pan with the blackcurrants and water and put a lid on the pan. Gently heat to bring to the boil, boil for 1 minute then turn off the heat. Leave the pan to infuse for a few hours or overnight. Add the sugar to the pan and bring back to a boil, stirring all the time to dissolve the sugar. Strain the mixture through a sieve, squashing the berries to remove as much juice as possible. Ladle the juice into sterile bottles then refrigerate. Dilute to taste and use up within a month.

Next I removed a few more blackcurrant bags to make several pounds of blackcurrant jam. And then a few strawberries and raspberries to use with some fresh windfall apples to make summer fruit jam. Where next? I have a couple of pounds of windfall apples to use asap - do I make apple and blackcurrant jam or cucumber and apple chutney, green tomato chutney or brown sauce? Decisions, decisions... although it matters little as I shall make them all within the next couple of weeks and have my store cupboard well and truly stuffed by Christmas.

Blackcurrant Jam

Ingredients (makes 4 to 5 jars)

4 lb (1800 g) blackcurrants

2½ pints (1400 ml) water

4 lb (1800 g) sugar

NB: Every pound of blackcurrants requires 12½ fl oz water and 1 lb sugar

Method

Pick over the blackcurrants but there is no need to wash the fruit. Put them into a preserving pan with the water and bring it to the boil. Simmer for 40 to 50 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the skins are tender. In the meantime, warm the sugar. When the fruit is cooked, add the sugar to the blackcurrants and stir over a low heat until the sugar is completely dissolved. Boil rapidly for 6 to 8 minutes until the setting point is reached.

Summer Fruit Jam

1 lb (454g) strawberries

4 oz (110g) raspberries

1 lemon

2 lb (900g) apples

16 fl oz (450ml) water

3 lb (1350g) sugar

NB: Every pound of apples requires 8 oz (225g) strawberries, 2 oz (55g) raspberries, half a lemon, 8 fl oz (225ml) water and 1 lb 8 oz (680g) sugar.

Cooked the strawberries and raspberries with the lemon juice and about 4 fl oz (100ml) of water for a few minutes until soft. Pour into a jelly bag and allow to drip until cool then squeeze the juice through. Peel, core and chop the apples and cook with the remaining water until soft and pulpy. Add the red fruit puree then the warmed sugar and stir until dissolved. Bring to the boil and boil vigorously until set. Pour into warmed jars and seal immediately.

Feeding a house guest

My mother-in-law was staying with us for a week this last week. It is slightly different having a house guest for a prolonged period compared to guests over for the evening. For a start, you have to tidy up properly rather than just pushing things into cupboards out of sight otherwise you're stuck for a whole week not able to open that cupboard! But also, you can't eat like a dinner party for 7 nights in a row. No one has the stamina to cook like that night after night and no one has the stomach for it either. Having said that, you know you can't just boil some pasta, grate some cheese over it and fork it into your mouth whilst watching TV... it just won't do!

So for the past 7 nights I have been cooking a variety of "nice" meals. Not overblown, show-off cookery nor reheated make-do meals. Instead, a few good quality ingredients, simply cooked. What makes that a good deal more achievable is access to the very freshest, organic fruit and vegetables, something top chefs not only prefer but often insist upon. Seasonal vegetables, picked within hours of being eaten, fruit hand picked and handled with care. Something that is worth paying a premium for and yet readily available from my allotment plot just on the other side of my garden fence.

On the menu this week, chops, gammon, fish and sausages, served with chips, mash, santed potatoes, new potatoes, baked potatoes, French beans, carrots, broccoli, sweetcorn, beetroot, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, courgettes, onions and fresh herbs. Perhaps the finest meal was Wednesday's when everything in the salad was homegrown.

And for dessert...? Strawberry swirl cheesecake, raspberry trifle, chocolate courgette muffins and apple & cinnamon crumble.

With a menu like that who needs to eat out?

Apple Crumble

Apple crumble is a classic bake but some versions can be overly sweet with a sickly, sticky crumble topping. This recipe retains its fruity flavours and the crumble topping is reminiscent of flapjacks.

2 lb (900 g) apples – peeled and sliced

1 oz (25g) soft light brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3 oz (85g) sultanas

2 tablespoons water

4 oz (110g) wholemeal flour

4 oz (110g) oats

4 oz (110g) light brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 oz (85g) butter

Place the apples, sugar, cinnamon, sultanas and water in a large pan and cook with the lid on for twenty minutes until fluffy – stir occasionally. In the meantime, preheat oven to 180°C (gas 4). In a bowl, add the flour, oats, sugar, baking powder and butter and use finger tips to rub into crumbs. Spoon the apple mix into a suitable ovenproof dish and layer the crumble mix on top. Level it off then bake in the oven for 30 minutes until golden brown. Serve with custard.

Variations:

Replace the apples with fruit such as plums or rhubarb. Also try reducing the weight of apples and replacing it with blackberries.

A picking perspective

When you grow your own food there is never anything tastier than the first picking of a particular crop... the first strawberry in June, the freshest first pea, the tastiest new potato. This seems to be a combination between the build up of anticipation as we watch a crop mature, the fact that we have not tasted a homegrown version of it for almost a year and some physical reality that the first is always the freshest and juiciest of the bunch.

This is certainly the case with peas and mangetout where the first ones are truly delicious and the last ones are... well... full of fibre and definitely good for you... but somewhat lacking on the enjoyment front! Then there are other crops, such as courgettes, where the first ones, fried simply with a bit of garlic and ginger are delicious but three months later we are so sick of the sight of courgettes we quite frankly need a nine month break before tasting another one.

There is another similar phenomenon that comes with the quantity of a crop that is available. The first few raspberries are picked with care and each one enjoyed. But a few weeks later when you have been picking punnets of raspberries once every three days you find that if you accidentally drop one whilst picking you don't even bother to bend down to pick it up. Not so the few blueberries from my blueberry bush where each one was carefully placed in a bag and retrieved when dropped if necessary.

We have just been away on holiday for three weeks and we took with us some freshly picked peas and mangetout, a few French beans and 4 courgettes. These ran out during the first week away so then we had to buy vegetables. On our return, whilst my parents and Sue had become sick of the sight of courgettes and fairly fed up with French beans, we were back to first picking perspective and once again enjoying our crops as if they were the first of the year. My mum was telling me about all the raspberries they had picked whilst we were away and how many ways they had been eating them. "Oh, do you like raspberries?" asked Steve. "Used to," my dad replied, which sums it up really!

Gardening Club Party

After another successful year of running a gardening club at my daughters’ school, it was time to celebrate our successes by holding an end of year party. Once again I sent out an invitation to all 34 children who had done gardening club at some point during the year and of those about 22 were able to attend the party. The week before, my current gardeners came inside for the afternoon and we made strawberry ice-cream lollies and raspberry jellies with the fruit we had grown in the little school garden. They also sowed some cress onto cotton wool to make a quick catch crop for sandwiches, and printed garden designs onto paper party bags.

A few days before the party, I made vegetable samosas with our homegrown potatoes, shallots, broad beans and peas. And then some onion bhajis with our onions. This was something of a challenge as I don’t own a deep fat frier but I managed to do an oven baked version that turned out well, providing 12 bite sized bhajis, just perfect as a taster. Children are never big fans of onions so it was a challenge to find a way of making onions appeal to children. With the mild spices and no added chilli powder these morsels proved to be a tasty sweet and savoury snack that the child

ren enjoyed.

On the day of the party itself, I boiled some eggs and grated some cheese to go with the cress in sandwiches. I crushed some garlic, mixed it with butter and chopped parsley and spread it in between slices in two part baked baguettes to make garlic bread. We had grown some Yukon Gold, Rooster and Blue Danube potatoes in a stack of 3 old tyres. To preserve the beauty of the yellow, red and blue skins on the potatoes I simply washed them and sliced them into chunky wedges. They just needed a quick mix with some sunflower oil, salt and pepper before going into the oven for half an hour. The remaining potatoes (Rocket and Vales Emerret varieties) I boiled and served with melted butter. Finally, for anyone feeling unadventurous, I also brought along a pot of homemade raspberry jam.

So for half an hour, whilst I cooked and prepared the food with a couple of helpful parents, the children went outside with Sue and built up an appetite running around playing games in the garden. Then they came inside to tuck into their feast. I invited the headteacher down to join us and she too was impressed by the spread of food. “Isn’t it amazing what you were able to grow in the school garden,” she said as she tucked into a samosa.

“Isn’t it amazing what you can make with potatoes and onions,” I quipped back.

But let’s face it, if you are able to grow potatoes and onions you’ll never starve!

Vegetable Samosas (makes 32)

1 large potato

1 medium carrot

1 handful peas

6-8 broad bean pods

2 shallots

½ teaspoon mustard seeds

½ teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon ground coriander

¼ teaspoon garam masala

Salt

250g pack filo pastry

Sunflower oil

Peel the potato and cut into small chunks. Peel the carrot and cut into small pieces. Boil the potatoes and carrots until soft. Remove broad beans from their pods then boil for about 10 minutes. Drain and cool then remove the outer skin from each bean. Peel and finely chop the shallot and fry until softened. Remove the shallots from the frying pan then add the mustard seeds and fry until they start to pop. In a bowl, combine the vegetables with the spices and salt to taste (add more spices if you prefer a stronger flavour). Preheat oven to 200°C, gas 6 and grease a large baking tray. Open the pack of filo pastry and keep it covered with Clingfilm and a tea towel to stop it drying out whilst you work.

To make a samosa, cut a sheet of filo pastry in half and brush it all over with some sunflower oil. Fold it into thirds along its longest length to make a long, thin rectangle. Place a spoonful of the filling at one end of the pastry strip then fold the end of the pastry diagonally over the filling to make a triangle shape. Then fold this over and over in a triangle shape until it reaches the other end of the pastry. Brush both sides of the parcel with sunflower oil and place on the baking tray. Cover with Clingfilm to stop it drying out whilst you make the other samosas. Cook the samosas for 15-20 minutes until lightly brown. Either serve immediately or store in an airtight container until needed then reheat for 10 minutes at 200°C, gas 6 to crisp up the pastry before serving.

Onion Bhaji-Bites (makes 12)

5 oz onions

Sunflower oil

¼ teaspoon turmeric

¼ teaspoon ground coriander

Pinch ground cumin

Pinch ground ginger

2½ oz Gram flour

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon ground coriander

1 generous teaspoon tomato puree

2 tablespoons water

Preheat oven to 180°C, gas 4 and grease a baking tray. Peel the onions and top and tail. Cut the onions in half then slice thinly. Fry the onions in a pan with a little oil until softened, stirring constantly. Add the turmeric, cumin, ginger and coriander to the onions and stir well before removing from the heat. Place the flour, salt, cumin and coriander in a bowl and mix well. Add the onions to the bowl and mix well until the onions are well coated. In a small cup, mix together the tomato puree and water. Add the tomato puree mixture to the flour and stir in to make a sticky mixture. Take teaspoonfuls of the mixture and form into small balls then place on the baking tray. Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden. Serve immediately or allow to cool. To reheat, place in an oven at 180°C,

A night to remember

As usual I’ve been extremely busy but now the summer holidays are here I have a bit of time to catch my breath and catch up on my blogs, although I'm currently away on the North coast of Scotland where the mobile broadband signal is flaky to say the least so blogging isn't too easy!

On 15th July Steve and I attended the gala awards evening for the 2010 Brit Writers Awards at the O2 in London. My Preserves book (available to buy from my ebay shop, by the way) had been nominated for the non-fiction category prize. Apparently there had been 21000 entries to the competition as a whole so reaching the top 6 in any category was a huge achievement. It is fantastic to have people read your work and to decide it is good enough to be seriously considered for such a prize. Amazing really that a recipe book can generate that much excitement in people who aren’t actively seeking a solution to a glut of fruit or veg.

As the evening was a black tie event we had to get ourselves poshed up for the event. This is not something that comes naturally to me. I’d rather be stood on the allotment in a t-shirt that has seen better days and a pair of trousers with a few holes in. It’s not to say that I neglect my appearance but with so many things to get done in a day, spending time on my hair and make-up is a low priority and my clothes need to be practical. So it was a rare treat to go to the hairdressers and have someone spend 45 minutes transforming my long red locks into a glamorous “updo”. And then slip into a long velvet dress and give myself a makeover. As an unexpected finishing touch my Business Buddy friends had buttonhole flowers delivered to our door for Steve and me.

At 3 o’clock, with my mum setting off to pick the girls up from school, Steve and I headed into London. It’s not often that I get treated like a VIP but I think I could get use to it should I ever become a famous writer! At 6 we sat down for our VIP meal and then around 8 the awards ceremony began.

I didn’t expect my humble recipe book to win, and that proved to be the case, but it was an honour to get that far and to treated like a VIP for the night. Like Cinderella, I was home and in bed for midnight but unlike Cinderella, the next morning there was the school run to do and plenty more potatoes to peel!

A tale of two cakes... and a trifle.

It was my youngest daughter's 6th birthday on Friday. Of course for her it was a very important and special day and rightly so, so it was only proper that I helped to make it a special day too despite the timing of it being smack bang in the middle of the busiest fortnight since the week before Christmas!

Her birthday also happened to share the day with the school's sports day and summer fete. From her point of view it just helped to make her day even more special. For me, it meant squeezing her birthday around fete preparations and spending a couple of hours standing in a field watching her throwing bean bags about. As well was the usual jobs of sticking tombola tickets on donated prizes, this year I was running a fruit kebab stall with the members of my after school cooking club. This required some last minute shopping for fresh fruit as well as organising equipment and so on. So from dropping the girls off in the morning I remained in school until 11.30. Then it was time to nip home, have lunch, slap on sun block and rush out again for the sports day at 1pm, followed directly by the fete at 3 until 5pm. So when exactly was I going to make her a birthday cake?

I had made arrangements to visit Gulliver's Land for her birthday treat on the Saturday, followed by dinner at my parents' house. For this I had planned a white chocolate raspberry ripple cheesecake as her "birthday cake". My daughter absolutely loves soft fruit so she welcomed the idea of this cheesecake with enthusiasm. With no cooking involved I managed to make the base and the raspberry sauce bits on Thursday in between other jobs and I just needed to assemble the thing at some point on Friday. So in my lunch break I blended the creamy bit together, swirled in the raspberry sauce and returned it to the fridge before dumping the messy bowls in the sink and dashing out again.

White Chocolate Raspberry Ripple Cheesecake

For the base

75g digestive biscuits, crushed

75g gingernut biscuits, crushed

75g butter, melted

For the topping

200g white chocolate

30g butter

1/4 vanilla pod

250g cream cheese

90ml whipping cream

100g raspberries

25g caster sugar

For the biscuit base combine the crushed biscuits and the melted butter in a bowl then press into the greased base of a 20cm circular tin or dish. Place in the refrigerator for at least half an hour to solidify. Next, melt the chocolate, butter and the seeds from the vanilla pod in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Leave to cool. In another bowl, mix together the cream and cheese and beat until smooth. Once the chocolate mix is suitably cool add it to the cream mix and stir thoroughly. Spoon onto the biscuit base. Reserve a few raspberries and place the rest in a saucepan with a couple of tablespoons of water and the caster sugar. Heat gently, squashing the raspberries with a spoon to break them down. After about 5 minutes remove from the heat and strain through a sieve to remove the seeds. Spoon the raspberry sauce over the cheesecake then gently swirl it through the upper surface of the creamy layer with a skewer or spoon handle. Chill over night then place the reserved raspberries on top before serving.

It slowly dawned on me that it was her birthday that day and she didn't have a birthday cake to stick candles in whilst we sung happy birthday to her. So back at school as the final preparations were being made for the fete I scanned the pile of donated cakes for the cake stall and under a piece of foil I found a homemade sponge ring cake. Perfect! I threw a donation into the pot and stashed it away at the back of the fruit kebab stall.

Several long and hot hours later, tired and stuffed with ice-creams, sweets and hot dogs we returned home. I grabbed the remaining whipping cream left over from making the cheesecake and whipped it until it was thick. Then I spooned it into the centre of the sponge ring cake, topped it with a selection of our soft fruit and decorated the ring with sugar flowers and six candles. Wow! It felt like I'd performed some sort of miracle!

Needless to say that with bellies full of fete food there wasn't much appetite for the cake, although the candles and song were greatly appreciated. So today with half the sponge ring left over I used it as the base for a raspberry trifle. I don't know who made that delicious sponge cake but whoever it was I am hugely grateful to them!