Growing My Own Vegetables

There is little in life more satisfying than growing your own food, a deep seeded need in me for some years now, however, this is the first year that I have successfully grown food. 

My father is a brilliant gardener, he can make the most forlorn looking raspberry bush burst forth with a bumper crop, it all seems effortless to him. I just assumed that the "green fingers" gene skipped me, instead I was the cook in the house, everyone has something, don't they? 

My first breakthrough came in the form of growing my (actually just keeping them alive) own herbs, I bought the ones you see in the supermarket, already potted and fully grown. Perfect for a cook, all I have to do is keep them alive. Now you'd think anyone could do that, isn't that what they are there for, nothing to do but water them. Well for the first few hundred (a slight exaggeration, but only slight) pots, I failed at even that. So much so that a snicker could be heard and murmurs of "another victim" when I would arrive home with another pot. So I was right, I'm not a gardener, I can cook but not grow. Until at last I was successful, my parsley lasted for months instead of days.

I made Tom Doorley's 3-Course Menu to Serve 4 (With Wine!) for €20 or Under.

Okay two blog posts in the same day is a record for me, but it I just had to share this with you all. I take no credit for this menu, I just happened to be listening to Marian Finucane's radio show when she interviewed Tom Doorley about his summer menu. Now aside from the fact that is not bad value at all, if you are entertaining, the food sounded really tasty, so I thought sure why not? The recipe for this whole meal is on Tom Doorley Megabites blog. I made the whole meal, albeit with a few minor changes, so here is how I got on....

I decided to make the tart first, as it sets as it cools and it taste perfect at room temperature.

The pastry is very rich and buttery (use chilled butter when making the pastry) however this makes it a bit tricky to roll out so I took Tom at his word and treated it like plasticine and pushed it into the edges of my tart tin.

Blind baked it at 190ºC for 10 minutes.

I upped the sugar in the tart by an extra 100g cause I have a sweet tooth that makes me do these things ;) The recipe wasn't clear if I should use two or three eggs, so I opted for two.

Baked it for 30 minutes at 160ºC until it was golden on top.

The tart was still a bit sharp but perfect with some pouring cream.

The chicken and mushroom gratin..... 

I cooked the chicken for about 40 minutes and allowed it to cool slightly before stripping off the flesh.

The gratin is very moreish and hearty. I used a 1.2kg chicken which was €2.99 from Aldi instead of the the 1.4kg free range chicken called for in the original recipe. I had the chicken in the freezer and was looking for a tasty recipe in which to use it. The filling is very easy to make, no lumpy sauce to worry about.

The chicken is tender and sweet while the topping is just the right amount of crunchy!

Makin' the soup....

I reduced the stock to about 1ltr, now because I used a very, very large saucepan to cook the chicken in, I had a LOT of stock, so the job of reducing it too a bit longer than I thought. Once that was done it only took a few minutes to make the soup.

Light and perfect with a cool glass of wine.

The salad...

The salad leaves (lolla rossa) were from my own garden and I substituted the shallot with a homegrown spring onion. I made the vinaigrette in a jar with 2 parts oil to 1 part cider vinegar with 1tsp of wholegrain mustard.

Dress the salad just before you are about to serve it as it will wilt if left too long.

I really enjoyed this meal, it was really tasty and although it takes time to put together it is well worth it. I will be making this again soon and looking forward to it too!

Simple Blackcurrant Jam (My Parents' Recipe)

This was a whole family effort, children, parents and grandparents together picked these juicy blackcurrants. My children were thrilled when they found yet another fruit laden branch, of which there were many! We filled an old saucepan to the brim with the large purple blackcurrants, from there they were weighed, bagged and carefully nursed home. My father ran through the recipe quickly and with a final wave we left them to their own jam making. Their recipe only calls for 1kg of fruit at a time as they believe it impairs the flavour if the batches are too big.
I think that they could easily sell their jam at the local farmers market, what we took home was only a fraction of the fruit on the branches. Our back garden blackbirds are the best fed in the country!

With some of the remaining blackcurrants I made a Frangipane Tart, which I adapted from my Blueberry Frangipane Tart, I added 300g of the blackcurrants instead of the blueberries, it has a much sharper taste but it is perfect with some sweetened cream or creme fraiche.

Yield 4 x 454g Jars

Ingredients
1kg Fresh blackcurrants, washed and stalks removed
1kg Granulated sugar
125ml Water
Knob of butter

Method
Wash the blackcurrants in cold running water to remove any grit or grime.

Remove the stalks and any unripe (green) blackcurrants. Place the blackcurrants in a large saucepan, add the sugar, water and the butter (my fathers tip: the butter will stop the jam from bubbling up too much).

My mother's tip is that by placing the blackcurrants first in the pan it will prevent the sugar from burning into the bottom of the pan.

Bring the mixture slowly to the boil. Skim the scum from the top.

Allow the jam to come to a roiling boil for 20 minutes, stirring frequently. Meanwhile place a saucer in the freezer and sterilise your jars. Keep the sterilised jars warm in the over at 110ºC/225ºF/ Gas Mark ¼ until needed, this will prevent the jars from cracking when pouring in the jam.

When the 20 minutes have elapsed, place a teaspoon of jam on the frozen saucer, leave on the counter for 1 minute, run your finger through the jam, if the skin wrinkles or the track left by your finger stays in place, your jam is ready. If not continue to boil for another 5-10 minutes test again.

Remove the jam for the heat, ladle into the warmed jars, seal and label.