Monday, June 18, 2007
Third fruits
Having had some rhubarb - plants all dying down now, no more this year - and some spinach left over from last year, now moving into main crops.
Picked maybe three pounds of broad beans, of various sizes and with some slug damage. Thought about cooking them in their outer (furry) skins as suggested by some foodies and observed that some books suggest boiling them for 20 minutes which is around 4 times as long as I would cook them for - then decided to go for peeled beans. Beans varied in size from something less than a centimeter in diameter to something more than two. Product was about right for four of us. BH said that young beans were clearly the thing; she actually liked them, rather than having to plod through peeling the tough skins off them after cooking.
Dug maybe four roots of the second early Kestrel potatoes. First two roots, those next to the path and most exposed to slug attack, did not yeild too much, maybe three times what I put in. But the next root did really well and the fourth did OK. Oddly, didn't manage to spear any of them. Skins almost wiped off. Cut to a bit bigger than golf balls and boiled for 15 minutes, all this within a couple of hours of their being lifted. Excellent waxy texture, flavour good. Entirely differant experience to the Jersey Royals which we have been eating latterly.
Vegetables accompanied by a peice of fore rib - which had a reasonable amount of fat - and which went down very well. Near on seven pounds done for 2 hours 40 minutes at 180C, oven door opened for inspection once. Just about right. Maybe six servings in all.
The new bamboo is now taking off, after having looked a bit miserable for the last couple of months. Now have a smallish number of very fierce looking long green shoots - one of them shooting out near horizontally from the stool. Perhaps the couple of weeks of humid if not particularly wet weather have done the business.
Runner beans also picking up - maybe as much bean plant now as willow shoots on the bean poles. Should have moved into slug pellets a lot earlier.
Some interesting looking holes have appeared in the ground - untouched ground which is still quite hard despite the rain. About three of them and an inch and a bit in diameter, sloping steeply down. Should have poked a stick down to see how far it goes. Looks a bit big for mice and there is none of the debris I thought one always gets with moles. Didn't think rats went in for burrowing. Ants move a lot of earth around but again, didn't think that they made holes of this size at the surface. Don't really want to dig them up to see what is down there.
Picked maybe three pounds of broad beans, of various sizes and with some slug damage. Thought about cooking them in their outer (furry) skins as suggested by some foodies and observed that some books suggest boiling them for 20 minutes which is around 4 times as long as I would cook them for - then decided to go for peeled beans. Beans varied in size from something less than a centimeter in diameter to something more than two. Product was about right for four of us. BH said that young beans were clearly the thing; she actually liked them, rather than having to plod through peeling the tough skins off them after cooking.
Dug maybe four roots of the second early Kestrel potatoes. First two roots, those next to the path and most exposed to slug attack, did not yeild too much, maybe three times what I put in. But the next root did really well and the fourth did OK. Oddly, didn't manage to spear any of them. Skins almost wiped off. Cut to a bit bigger than golf balls and boiled for 15 minutes, all this within a couple of hours of their being lifted. Excellent waxy texture, flavour good. Entirely differant experience to the Jersey Royals which we have been eating latterly.
Vegetables accompanied by a peice of fore rib - which had a reasonable amount of fat - and which went down very well. Near on seven pounds done for 2 hours 40 minutes at 180C, oven door opened for inspection once. Just about right. Maybe six servings in all.
The new bamboo is now taking off, after having looked a bit miserable for the last couple of months. Now have a smallish number of very fierce looking long green shoots - one of them shooting out near horizontally from the stool. Perhaps the couple of weeks of humid if not particularly wet weather have done the business.
Runner beans also picking up - maybe as much bean plant now as willow shoots on the bean poles. Should have moved into slug pellets a lot earlier.
Some interesting looking holes have appeared in the ground - untouched ground which is still quite hard despite the rain. About three of them and an inch and a bit in diameter, sloping steeply down. Should have poked a stick down to see how far it goes. Looks a bit big for mice and there is none of the debris I thought one always gets with moles. Didn't think rats went in for burrowing. Ants move a lot of earth around but again, didn't think that they made holes of this size at the surface. Don't really want to dig them up to see what is down there.
# posted by Jim @ 8:18 AM 
