07.08

Cider-with-Rosie-summer-vegetable-recipes-7

If there’s any one vegetable you can always count on to be plentiful when growing your own, it’s the courgette. Last year I had three plants growing in the tiny garden of our old house, and such a bountiful supply I promised myself that in 2018 I’d cut back to just two plants.

But in reality? I’ve somehow managed to end up with five, yes, FIVE plants of differing varieties, and we’re picking an average of two courgettes a day. Last weekend we picked NINE. It’s madness, madness I tell you!

So what to do with them all? Well, we’re cramming them into just about every savoury recipe going (from risottos and pastas, to fritters and salads), I’ve made batches of pickles and chutneys, but my current favourite way to use these sweet summer squashes up is to bake them into a loaf cake.

Cider-with-Rosie-summer-vegetable-recipes-3 Cider-with-Rosie-summer-vegetable-recipes Cider-with-Rosie-summer-vegetable-recipes-2

The cake itself is the simplest thing to knock up (even with the help, or hindrance, of a toddler), and is absolutely delicious too.

It doesn’t taste exactly of courgettes, in the way that carrot cake doesn’t taste exactly of carrots, but it does have a certain undefinably ‘green’ flavour that works so well alongside the freshness of berries or some citrus zest. I’ve been topping it off a simple lemon glaze more often than not, but this time, thanks to a distinct lack of lemons available in the house, I had to get creative with a few of the first blackberries of the season instead.

Simply warmed through, crushed, and then mixed with a small mound of icing sugar, it made the most delicious topping for the cake. And oh so seasonal, too!

Cider-with-Rosie-summer-vegetable-recipes-4 Cider-with-Rosie-summer-vegetable-recipes-5  

The recipe is one I’ve adapted from BBC Good Food, though minimally it must be said. Mainly through laziness (I didn’t have self raising flour first time I made it and so replaced with plain flour and just doubled up the baking powder), and also I’ve removed the sultanas because does anyone really want sultanas in a sponge cake? I think not.

Makes one loaf cake.

Ingredients:
350g courgettes
250g light brown sugar
125ml sunflower oil
3 large eggs
1tsp vanilla extract
Grated zest of 1 lemon
300g plain flour
2tsps baking powder

- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees, and grease and line a loaf tin with parchment paper.

- Grate the courgettes, then put them all into a tea towel and wring out as much of the moisture as you can.

- Add the courgettes to a large bowl, and add in the sugar, oil, eggs, lemon zest (if using), and vanilla extract. Mix together. Tip in the flour and baking powder, mix thoroughly, and then pour the batter into the lined cake tin.

- Bake for 50minutes-1 hour, and then allow to cool slightly before turning out onto a wire rack.

- A simple and delicious glaze can be made by mixing icing sugar into fruit juice (lemon, orange, grapefruit, mashed berries…) until a smooth runny consistency is achieved. Allow the cake to cool completely before icing.

Cider-with-Rosie-summer-vegetable-recipes-6 Cider-with-Rosie-summer-vegetable-recipes-8

 

If you have a go and make it yourself, do tag me in a photo on Instagram! I’d love to know how you get on!

6 Comments
Posted in CAKE, COUNTRYSIDE LIFE, EATING SEASONALLY, FROM MY HOME TO YOURS, KITCHEN GARDEN, RECIPE, SUMMER

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

22.06

Cider-with-Rosie-France-24

Remember our trip to France last summer, with an 11 month old Ottilie who seemed so grown up to me at the time but now in photos looks like the littlest chubbiest baby ever!? Well, 10 months later, we went back for round two!

Ottilie and I kissed Jason goodbye at the airport last Saturday, and headed off to the Pyrenees for a girls’ week away with Tania and Freya. And whilst I’m going to be straight with you and confess that travelling with a toddler isn’t quite as easy as travelling with a baby (good LORD, the tantrums!!!) , we still had so much fun!

Ottie was in her element with eggs to collect daily from the chicken coop, horses to ‘feed’ grass to (thank you Hugo for pretending to enjoy it and making my little girl so happy!), and homemade crepes with jam that were better than any I’ve ever tasted before. In fact, we all ate so well I’ve come home resolved to try and recreate some of the delicious recipe’s that Tania’s wonderful Dad made us whilst we were there. First on the list is a chickpea curry that was one of the tastiest and most comforting I’ve ever had, and a ratatouille of dreams.

A few snapshots from our week away…

Cider-with-Rosie-France Cider-with-Rosie-France-9

^^ My water baby, never happier than when busy in the garden with a watering can. Wonder where she gets it from? ^^

Cider-with-Rosie-France-2 Cider-with-Rosie-France-22 Cider-with-Rosie-France-21 Cider-with-Rosie-France-4 Cider-with-Rosie-France-5

^^ I’ve been desperate to rescue some ex-battery chickens for the longest time, and am even more keen now after our week in France! They make the most charming noises and one in particular is so keen to be a part of the family, she’s learnt to fly the fence and escape! I just think they’re the sweetest. Would it be madness though to take on chickens, alongside two babies and working from home and the veg patch and everything else? ^^

  Cider-with-Rosie-France-25   Cider-with-Rosie-France-28 Cider-with-Rosie-France-20 Cider-with-Rosie-France-10

Ottilie is completely and utterly obsessed with Auntie ‘Taya’, and asked for her from the moment we woke up in the morning (usually at around 6am, yikes!) until when we went to bed! <3

Cider-with-Rosie-France-13 Cider-with-Rosie-France-14 Cider-with-Rosie-France-15 Cider-with-Rosie-France-27

^^ There’s nothing quite like seeing your baby running around free in the countryside, covered in grass and mud and completely content. ^^

I feel as though I learnt so much about Ottilie’s personality this week, how much she is like me and loves the comforts and familiarities of home. She found being away quite difficult for the most part, and I’ve always had such dreadful homesickness whenever I’ve travelled ever since being little that I guess it shouldn’t have come as a great surprise. Her behaviour was so challenging at times but despite how hard it was, it’s made me a better parent in the long run I’m sure. The learning never stops as a Mother, does it? <3

(P.s. We used biodegradable Naty nappies instead of our usual cloth whilst away, and they were great! Not a single leak, even at night. I don’t like them as much as Kit & Kin biodegradable nappies though, I’ll be using those on the new baby when he or she is born and is too little for our cloths!)

Cider-with-Rosie-France-3 Cider-with-Rosie-France-17

Shout out to this jumpsuit for being the most comfortable non-maternity maternity outfit ever! Granted it’s not the most flattering and makes my bump look ginormous (at 6 months I swear I’m as big as I was a good few weeks further on with Ottie!!), but what it lacks in flattery it makes up for in comfort! I’ve linked it below, if you’re in the market for an adult onesie ;)

Cider-with-Rosie-France-18

* Photos of me by Freya Dowson.

4 Comments
Posted in FRANCE, SUMMER, TRAVEL

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

12.06

Cider-with-Rosie-Vegetable-Patch-June-2 Cider-with-Rosie-Vegetable-Patch-June-3

T H E   S E A S O N   O F   G R O W T H

Oh, June. The dreamiest of months, where the plants seem in a race against one another to show off who can grow the tallest, climb fastest, sprawl widest. I’m utterly obsessive about my daily (okay twice, or sometimes thrice daily) wander down to the vegetable patch to observe, tend, harvest, and water, and now that there’s often a pod of peas or two to snack on whilst I’m down there, all the better.

The jobs seem as constant as ever this month, with successional rounds of seeds to sow, the first row of potatoes to harvest, and a jungle of tomatoes to support in the greenhouse. My most-used phrase these days seems to be ‘I’m just popping outside to do X/Y/Z, be back in 5′, and half an hour later I’m still outside, with hands caked in soil and half a dozen jobs ticked off my endlessly updated to-do list.

Cider-with-Rosie-Vegetable-Patch-June-7

Like peas in a pod…

If there’s one most important thing I’ve learnt so far this growing year (and there’s been many things I’ve learnt), it’s that I can afford to sow three, four, five times as many pea and bean seeds and still have plenty of space to spare! In fact, that’s been my lesson in general this year, that it’s much better to have spares, extra spares, and a few more as backups rather than too few and risk being left with gaps in the beds and a sparse crop!

Especially since things like peas and beans ripen just a few at a time on each plant, I’m learning that to gather a really decent harvest in one go you need a LOT of plants! They really are so delicious though, sweet and tender straight from the pod and wonderful cooked into a pasta or risotto dish.

I’ve just sowed a new batch of petit pots peas (the variety is ‘Calibra’) to take over when the ‘Kelvedon Wonder’ main crop peas are done, and will be sowing some broad beans to overwinter in late autumn this year ready for the following spring.

Cider-with-Rosie-Vegetable-Patch-June-6 Cider-with-Rosie-Vegetable-Patch-June-10 Cider-with-Rosie-Vegetable-Patch-June-11 Cider-with-Rosie-Vegetable-Patch-June-12 Cider-with-Rosie-Vegetable-Patch-June-13

(Between Ottilie and the dogs, who all are more than partial to a pea pod or two, it’s a wonder I’ve even managed to get a look in this year. Roll on the sugar snaps!)

Cider-with-Rosie-Vegetable-Patch-June-4 Cider-with-Rosie-Vegetable-Patch-June-5

Flowers flowers everywhere… 

…some bringing the promise of food, and others merely for show!

It was actually Ottilie who put the ‘Lady Salisbury’ sweet pea seeds into a little tray of compost back in January of this year, with more care and dexterity than I ever expected from her tiny, then-16 month old fingers. And now look at them! They’re the most gorgeous variety, with each bloom having a unique pattern of lilac tinging around its white petals. I cut the first little bunch today, actually, and Ottilie was so proud to carry the tiny vase I’ve put them in into her bedroom and up on the mantlepiece.

And much less delicate, but equally as exciting for the promise they bring, are the courgette flowers! Big, bold, blousy- a screaming yellow beacon amongst the muted green and brown tones of the vegetable patch. It’s the ‘Soleil’ courgettes that are first to flower, two plants ready and raring to go with at least five little courgette babies on each and a couple of fruits already a few inches long and only a week or so away from harvesting I should think.

I’m sure I’ve said before but growing my own courgettes last year absolutely ruined all shop-bought varieties for me, in fact, I’ve not bought a single one single before last summer’s glut began! I’ve got three varieties all romping away in the garden right now, and am already dreaming of the light summer pastas, ratatouilles, risottos, curries, pickles, and even cakes I plan on making with their fruits this season.
  Cider-with-Rosie-Vegetable-Patch-June-16

 ^^ Always and forever tending to trays of seedlings- above are purple sprouting broccoli and winter savoys on the left, mixed radicchio on the right, and just out of shot is my next tray of lettuces ready to go…

In the greenhouse are trays of swedes, winter carrots (attempting multi-sowing in cells!), kales, cabbages, and some more runner beans all sown just this weekend, because I promised my mother-in-law an ample summer supply of her favourite runner beans and so must deliver! ^^

Cider-with-Rosie-Vegetable-Patch-June-8

Now, I like to think that so far this year I’ve done okay. Most things have germinated, I’ve overcome issues with imbalanced soil and still-unidentified diseases in my broad beans and a courgette plant that sulked for weeks after planting out, but lettuces? That most easy, foolproof of crops? It’s been a nightmare!

One variety of seeds just would NOT germinate, despite me trying another packet of the exact same type, and all those I’ve got to planting-out stage have grown so very slowly I’ve only just begun picking the odd leaf here and there! In fact, most have stubbornly refused to grow at all ever since planting out…except the ones that were munched to the ground by rabbits, and now have come back as full, beautiful lettuce heads.

Nature, eh. I don’t know, sometimes!

Cider-with-Rosie-Vegetable-Patch-June-14 Cider-with-Rosie-Vegetable-Patch-June-9 Cider-with-Rosie-Vegetable-Patch-June  

And lastly, happy and flourishing are the ‘Chioggia’ beets, a pink and white striped variety I just can’t wait to cut into and taste, the ‘Swift’ first early potatoes are up and mostly eaten and all completely delicious, and a supposedly mini, two-foot wide Savoy cabbage that is just beginning to heart up and is my pride and joy!

What’s growing for you, this month?

4 Comments
Posted in GARDENING, KITCHEN GARDEN, SUMMER

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

03.09

Cider-with-Rosie-France-31 Cider-with-Rosie-France-13 Cider-with-Rosie-France-4

A   L O N G   W E E K E N D   I N   F R A N C E

I was looking back through my camera album on my phone last weekend whilst ordering a batch of prints and when I came across my photos from our trip to France a couple of weeks back, I suddenly realised I never shared any of them here! Bad blogger!

Back at the beginning of August Jason and I took Ottilie on her first ever holiday, and went down to stay at Tania and Lizzie’s beautiful family home in the South of France. It honestly was the nicest way to spend a long weekend- Tan and Lizzie have been some of my dearest friends for years now, and their extended family welcomed us in with open arms, swept Ottilie off for a thousand cuddles and as much delicious bread and homemade hummus as she could ever want, and gave Jason and I chance to relax and enjoy time in the countryside!

Sadly, my photos from France aren’t the greatest because, like the complete fool that I am, I managed to bring my camera all the way to the airport…and then leave it behind in our car. I guess that what comes when you’re carrying luggage, a baby, and about 8 kilos worth of snacks and toys! So you can thank Tania for taking and sharing with me the only decent quality photos in this post, since she managed to achieve what I didn’t and got her camera all the way from England to France!

Cider-with-Rosie-France-14 Cider-with-Rosie-France-16

I think a good 75% of our time in France was spent sat at the dining table underneath the canopy outside…and I wasn’t complaining one single bit!

What with our tiny early riser who goes by the name of Ottilie Dorothy, we were usually up before every one else each morning. So we’d come downstairs, feed Ottie some cereal or toast or fruit…and then as Tania and Lizzie and the rest of the family woke up and joined us in dribs and drabs for coffee and more toast…Ottilie would just keep eating. One morning she ate a continuous stream of food from breakfast until lunchtime. But what with the homemade jams, the delicious peaches so ripe the juice would drip from your elbows whilst you ate them, and the sourdough bread so perfect for toasting, who could blame her?

Cider-with-Rosie-France-17 Cider-with-Rosie-France-15

^^ This particular chicken has decided she’s too good for the hen coop and has made herself part of the family! ^^

Cider-with-Rosie-France-25 Cider-with-Rosie-France-22

We spent most of our afternoons lazing round the pool, baking in the beautiful sunshine and dipping in and out of the pool to cool off.

Hector the labrador wandered around looking for cuddles and attention, and every hour or so would Tania’s Maman appear bearing trays of watermelon and iced tea or a pot full of the most divine homemade herbal tea. It was complete bliss. I could practically feel stress floating away from my shoulders!

Cider-with-Rosie-France-29 Cider-with-Rosie-France-28

Totally in love with these two photos of my little family. Ottilie was so happy whilst we were in France, and seemed to learn a new word every day! I’m totally in awe watching her grow.

And she just dotes on her Aunties, which is the sweetest thing to see. There’s something so special about watching your baby love your friends as much as you do!

Cider-with-Rosie-France-33 Cider-with-Rosie-France-26 Cider-with-Rosie-France-34 Cider-with-Rosie-France-30

When Ottilie went to bed each night, we spent our evenings drinking ice cold beers and chilled rose, giving Tania’s horse Hugo all the back scratches he could ever want, playing fierce games of badminton (Jason and I played a doubles game against Tania and Michael that nearly cost us our friendship ;), and, of course, eating the most delicious food.

Tagines, couscous, curries, pasta, the best tomatoes I’ve ever eaten from the vegetable garden…I’ve never been so full and happy in my life.

Cider-with-Rosie-France-35 Cider-with-Rosie-France-19

It was the dreamiest long weekend, and totally the best first family holiday we could’ve asked for! We all came back happier, more relaxed, and ready to plan our next family adventure.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
7 Comments
Posted in FAMILY, FRANCE, SUMMER, TRAVEL

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Read from the beginning >