Chestnuts roasting*

There aren't that many stores that sell chestnuts here, so when I see them I can't resist the temptation. I have fond family memories of Dad roasting chestnuts in an old biscuit tin over an open fire and everyone burning their fingers as they cracked off the outer layers of the nuts to get at the sweet brain-shaped meat within.

 I hadn't tried cooking them on the wood-burning stove before, but it worked fine: it took longer than the directly-over-the-flame method (about 20 minutes, turning the chestnuts occasionally) but there's less chance of burning them, this way.

And in considerably less than 20 minutes, all that was left was the furry, woody debris.

*Apologies if you have Nat King Cole crooning in your head for the rest of the day.

Early-morning light show

I really didn't feel like taking the dog for a walk this morning, even though the weather was mild and it looked as though the sun was going to put in an appearance (always a bonus in November). But my diligence was rewarded by two lovely views in opposite directions from the same standpoint.

Looking west, there was a rainbow fragment and (barely visible here) a skein of geese high in the sky:

While to the south and east the sun was rising; drawing a light mist from last night's rain.

Fried wontons

I'm not sure what it is about early November and fiddly Chinese food, but I decided to make wontons again this weekend, just as I did on the same weekend in 2010. Last time I steamed them, but as it wasn't a fasting day today (and as our new way of eating has been going so well), I decided to fry them this time.

The filling was a finely-chopped mixture of some of our winter vegetables: red and white cabbage, a carrot, red onion and two cloves of garlic, with a few mushrooms and some fresh ginger, salt and pepper. I put them all through the food processor which was very quick to do and created a fairly uniform dark purple paste.

A teaspoon of that mixture was put into the centre of each wonton wrapper, then the wrapper is moistened with water and folded in half over the filling:

and the two 'wings' of the hypotenuse are curved inwards to make a sort of dinner-napkin shape:

Child#2 and I got quite a good little production-line going (there were over 50 wrappers to fill) - this kind of fiddly food works really well when there is more than one person and it's easy for kids to do.

We covered the base of a frying pan with sunflower oil to the depth of a millimetre or two, then heated it over a medium heat for five minutes until it was suitably hot. We fried the wontons in batches of eight for a minute or two on each side, until they were golden brown.

The dipping sauce was a mixture of vinegar and soy with a crushed garlic clove in it. If I make these again I'd add a bit more heat to the vegetable mixture itself: these were a bit bland for my taste. They needed a chilli or two in the mix!

Sandy damage

The hurricane which affected New York and New Jersey so badly last week had an impact here, too. We didn 't lose any trees, as far as we know, but one of the greenhouse panels was blown out by the force of the wind.

It was supposed to drop cold last night, possibly cold enough to kill off the more tender greenhouse plants. In anticipation of that I harvested a lot of the remaining peppers, eggplants, and tomatoes.

Then we got to work to fill the gap in the side wall. We don't have any of the plastic panelling left, so we painted a sheet of plywood with preservative and put that up instead.

Having done all that, the temperature only dropped to 0°C last night and the plants would have been fine anyway. But tonight we are promised -6°C/21°F and I"m glad we are prepared.

A bit of a rant and some greens

All the family went out for a meal last night to celebrate Mike's birthday. I was looking forward to trying one of the 'Countylicious' menus at local restaurants. This is a month-long celebration of the County's 'culinary community', according to the initiative's website - it's basically designed to tempt people out to local restaurants in the slack season between the end of summer and the Christmas party rush. It's been running for a few years but this is the first time we'd got organised enough to try it.

And I have to say that I was disappointed with the meal I had. The meat was local, but the vegetables were anything but fresh, local, and seasonal: asparagus in November and some carrots and broccoli that looked suspiciously like they'd come from a packet of frozen veg. With farm stands still selling fresh vegetables in the County: root crops, leeks, cabbages, squashes, there's simply no excuse for a restaurant claiming to be celebrating local food to be serving up frozen vegetables at this time of year.

I mentioned in an earlier post that the Brussels sprout plants have been refusing to produce any actual sprouts, despite looking green and healthy. I think the weather conditions this year just haven't been right for the formation of sprouts. I don't like to think that I've grown a vegetable which is producing nothing worth eating, so instead of vainly hoping for some sprouts to appear at this late period of the year, I'm focusing instead on those healthy green leaves and am harvesting those.

I've not picked or cooked Brussel tops before, so this was a bit of an experiment. I cut out the stems, shredded the greens and then lightly braised them with a clove or two of garlic in a little butter and water, finished with some freshly ground pepper and a little salt.

They made a tasty and brightly green side dish to our Sunday lunch of local lamb cooked with  herbs, onions, carrots, potatoes and parsnips, all from our garden. Even those who would refuse to eat sprouts were willing to consume them. If we can eat these seasonal, local crops at our own table, I'm sure that restaurants claiming to support County growers can do the same thing.

Foraging for fungi

I've been picking Shaggy Ink Caps from the front garden in the last week or two. It's very satisfying to be able to pick some of your breakfast from the lawn!

In the last week I spotted another type of fungus growing in the orchard grass. Well, it wasn't hard to spot, really, being about 10 inches in diameter. But I have no idea what this one is. Have you?

Late October harvest

We're enjoying an Indian Summer at the moment - with temperatures yesterday in the low 20s/70s. Unfortunately, the forecast for the next week looks unrelentingly grim: much colder, rain every day and the chance of a visit from Hurricane Sandy. Lovely!

I decided to go and dig up some of the outside root crops before they all get drowned. I got a good haul of parsnips, carrots and sunchokes, plus a swede/rutabaga, one of my Savoy cabagges and more broccoli. Since recovering from the dry summer, the broccoli plants have been doing really well and I've been picking it twice a week. I wish I could say the same for the Brussels sprouts, which look fantastic from a distance but which haven't produced a single sprout between them.

A hard frost has brought about a dramatic change in the pumpkin patch at the hayfield. Here's how the bed was looking in early August:

And now it's looking almost as though there was never anything growing in it; just a few last spaghetti squash left to show how productive it has been.

Considering the problems we had with the long dry spells in July and August, I was pleased with the amount of produce this bed delivered. Especially compared to last year, when squash bugs destroyed all of these plants in the vegetable garden by the house. The longer walk also provided me with some good exercise as I carried all the pumpkins, squash and cucumbers back to the house!

Botanical gardens, Berlin

I've been in Berlin for a few days on a business trip this week, with two days free at the end because of stupid flight pricing. Yesterday I went on a fantastic bike tour of the city centre with a group of other tourists from all over the world. That was great fun (especially the part where we were cycling through the Tiergarten: the park is really beautiful at this time of year).

Today I headed for the botanical gardens. I got there just before they officially opened, but the entrance gate was already manned, so I paid my €6 and set off into the garden, armed with a printed guide to the best parts to visit in the autumn. For about half an hour I didn't see anyone else at all and felt as though I had the whole space to myself. It was a sunny, dewy, morning with just a touch of mist in the air.

I wasn't expecting to see many flowers, so late in the year, but the trees more than made up for that. The season is less advanced here than it is at home and the trees are looking beautiful. The arboretum is full of interesting-looking small paths which beg to be explored: it doesn't feel at all formal, apart from the labels on the plants.

One that caught my attention in the North American part of the arboretum was this witch-hazel (Hamamelis virginiana). I hadn't realised that this was native to our part of the world. Looking at its range, we're right at the northern edge of it, but it would be great if we could grow this in our woods at home.

Also in flower in the arboretum was this striking plant:

This is Cimicifuga simplex, otherwise known as bugbane. This is native to Asia, but the North American equivalent is Actaea (or Cimicifuga) racemosa, a.k.a. black cohosh, black snakeroot or fairy candle. Another one to look out for at home.

The roses in the garden were mostly showing off their hips. These are from the dog rose:

There were one or two brave roses still flowering. I didn't make a note of the variety, but this one looked lovely with its light spritzing of dew:

The glasshouses and their contents were architecturally impressive:

I narrowly missed taking a photo of a small brown newt which was sitting on this plant the second before I pressed the shutter button:

I've never been wild about cacti, but there's something about this group that's almost cuddly.

And did I mention that the trees were gorgeous?

Having spaces like this almost makes it worth living in a city, although I must admit that I liked it best in that first half-hour when I felt I was only sharing it with the birds. By the time I left there was quite a long queue at the entrance, so the garden is clearly appreciated by the city's inhabitants and visitors.

Tarte au citron chocolat

We're having our official Thanksgiving meal a week late, as my dad and his wife will be with us next weekend and we thought we'd wait until then for the big feast. But there were small murmurings of discontent from the children at not having a celebratory meal this weekend, so I'm putting a bit more thought and effort than usual into tomorrow's Sunday lunch.

I made my Christmas cake and pudding this week and as a result had a dezested orange and lemon to use up. My original vague thought for a Sunday dessert was to make a lemon tart to use up the juice of the lemon. Google wafted me over to David Lebovitz's site where I got sidetracked by the amazing recipe for the pastry shell of the lemon tart he made. I adapted it slightly by cooking the butter mixture on the stovetop rather than in the oven, but it seemed to come out fine. Then while it was baking I wandered off to look at his other tart recipes and immediately fell in love with his description of his chocolate tart:

A good chocolate tart doesn’t need to be fancy, but it needs to be deep, dark, and yes, somewhat decadent.

Sold.

The method looked a little scary, involving making caramel and warning about being "sure to avert your face" when you add the liquid to the hot sugar. But it all went smoothly (I love David Lebovitz's reassuring and straightfoward instructions) and I did use up the juice of the orange in the recipe, so at least some of my original intention was achieved!

Here's the finished tart:

Now the main challenge is going to be resisting cutting into it before tomorrow...

Global success

I thought the globe artichokes I grew from seed this year had been killed by the dry spell in July. But they came back from the dead once we had some decent rainfall and are now looking quite healthy.

My next problem is whether they will survive the winter here. I think I'll cut the leaves back once we get a frost and then pile hay over the plants and see what happens. I grew one in one of the greenhouse beds, too, so that plant might have a better chance of making it through the cold season.

Has anyone else successfully brought globe artichokes through a Great Lakes winter?

Crumble tart

Mike and I made a bit of a lifestyle change in mid-August when we started following the 5:2 way of eating. This involves eating perfectly normally most of the week, but drastically cutting back calories on two days to 500 for me and 600 for him. It's been going pretty well and I've set up a separate blog about it, with recipes and so on, as it doesn't really fit into the theme of this one.

Today was a not-a-fasting day (hurrah) and I took advantage of it by making this delicious tart. The recipe is from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess, where it's called German Plum Tart. In my version I used two slightly spongy apples (which were sitting neglected in the fruit bowl and destined to become compost if I didn't do something creative with them) and two peaches instead of the plums called for in the recipe.

The tart consists of three layers. The bottom one is a sweet yeasted dough which is pressed into the bottom of a roasting dish:

Then comes the layer of fruit with three tablespoons of brown sugar, which makes a sweet syrup with the juice from the peaches:

The final layer is a crumble of flour, sugar and butter (I didn't have the walnuts or pecans that the recipe called for). The syrup sinks into the dough and the crumble on top crisps up beautifully.

A perfect treat after a day of abstinence!

Plenty

It's that time of year when I think things like 'I'll just pop outside and pick a few tomatoes'. And then I stagger back indoors, an hour later, laden with a little bit more than my planned harvest:

And then there is an hour or two of feverish chopping, trimming, blanching, boiling, labelling, and freezing to get through before I can walk through the kitchen again without a burden of guilt at the sight of all the unprocessed abundance.

Quite a lot of today's haul got turned into supper:

Moussaka is about the only thing I can do with eggplant that is likely to be welcomed by the children.

As problems go, having too much produce is hardly one to complain about. And I do know that the February me will be grateful to the me of today for freezing all this food. I just wish she was here to help me do it!

Eggs, tomatoes and kale

We've been having a disappointing performance from the chickens in recent months: ever since we merged the new chicks in with the remainder of our original flock we've only been getting one or two eggs a day. In recent weeks this has gone down to just one egg a day and sometimes none. This means that we've been feeding 31 birds and only one of them has been deigning to return the favour.

About 12 of those birds are males, so I'm not expecting any eggs from them, but it would be nice if the remaining 19 could pull their weight a bit. I was therefore very pleased to find two eggs today, one of them quite small. I hope this means that our new flock have started to lay: with any luck we will soon be overrun with eggs again, instead of portioning them out as though they're made of solid gold.

I had a go at making oven-dried tomatoes this weekend, using some of my crop of cherry tomatoes. It takes quite a while, but it's really worth it: they taste amazing - a really concentrated burst of tomatoey sweetness.

I was away at the end of last week and in my absence the cabbage worms have done a good job of eating nearly every leaf on the young Tuscan kale plants which had been doing very well in the greenhouse. I spent half an hour yesterday morning picking the little blighters off.

On a broccoli plant I found that one of the caterpillars had already matured enough to build itself a cocoon. I know there's not much logic to it, but I left the cocoon in place. It may well hatch out and lay another devouring army of eggs on my plants, but there's something so wondrous about the transformation of caterpillar to butterfly that I can't bring myself to interfere with it.

Recovering

We lost the top layer of plastic from the greenhouse over the winter and the remaining layer has been looking increasingly battered and torn.

On Friday it was really windy and we had to make some emergency repairs to stop the damage getting much worse. The forecast on Sunday was for a sunny day with little wind, which are ideal conditions for trying to put new layers of polythene over the structure. Four years ago Mike and I did this as a two-person job. This time, the children were old enough to help pull the sheets over the greenhouse. It was still very hard and hot work, but by the end of the day the sheets were in place and secured along three of their edges.

This morning Mike finished securing the fourth edge, along the arch on the eastern side, a job complicated by a phalanx of curious wasps. If you don't like wasps much (and I don't know many people who do), being at the top of a ladder while they are buzzing around your head can be rather stressful. As if being up a ladder, doing a tricky job, in blazing hot sunshine is not stressful enough. My job, as usual, was as ladder ballast. Silently-praying-that-Mike-doesn't-fall-off-the-ladder ballast.

We still have to sort out the 'skirts' of the greenhouse, securing the long edges which roll up below the wooden battens, but at least those can be done with feet on terra firma!

Spiderfly

One of the over-ripe tomatoes in the greenhouse had burst on the edge of the raised bed last night and was proving to be a magnet for flies and wasps. I was surprised to see a spider nibbling on some of the fragments of tomato: vegetarian spiders aren't exactly common (there is one, apparently, out of 40,000 species!).

A closer look reveals the truth of the matter: it's really a fly cleverly disguised as a spider.

After a bit of internet-delving I think it's a member of the family Tephritidae (fruit flies); a species with the rather unattractive name of Walnut Husk Maggot (Rhagoletis suavis). According to Wikipedia, the genus name is partially derived from Ancient Greek rhago "a kind of spider". The BugGuide site also notes that some members of this fruit fly family "mimic jumping spiders. The wing-waving apparently deters the approach of jumping spiders, important predators of the flies."

Pumpkin seed granola

Remember the spaghetti squash I used on Sunday? I confess that I usually just put the seeds in the compost, as my one earlier attempt at roasting pumpkin seeds failed for some reason. This time, though, I was determined to make it work. I'd been meaning to make some granola, too and somehow these two intentions ended up being merged into one. Mainly because I didn't have a huge amount of granola ingredients, if I'm honest.

Making granola is so easy that I'm always amazed that I didn't work it out sooner. Here's what I threw together yesterday, once the cleaned squash seeds had been drying for 24 hours.

Recipe (makes around 5 servings)

2 cups rolled oats
Cleaned and dried seeds from two spaghetti squashes
Handful of flax seeds
2 tablespoons of peanut oil
¼ cup of water
¼ cup of maple syrup
¼ cup of brown sugar

Mix all the ingredients together, then spread out on a baking sheet and bake at 300°F/150°C for about 40 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes or so until the mix is a uniform golden brown. The ingredients are very flexible: I would have added cashews, almonds or peanuts if I'd had any.

Baked beans and spaghetti squash

I'm reading Guy Vanderhaeghe's The Englishman's Boy at the moment, which features a lot of cowboys. Perhaps that was why I thought of baked beans as a meal for today. I'm not fond of commercially-canned baked beans, but home-made ones are a different proposition entirely and they're something we eat fairly regularly in the colder months. I use dry haricot beans (called navy beans here) and soak them overnight. Then you boil them for an hour or so in fresh water.

Usually I add onions, ketchup, molasses, mustard powder, salt and pepper (in unscientific quantities) to the cooked beans  and the water they've been boiling in. Today I had a batch of rather battered tomatoes which I had to do something with in a hurry, so instead of using ketchup I cut out the good parts, whizzed them in the food processor then boiled the tomatoes down into a thick sauce (while the beans were boiling). I added a splash of vinegar to the tomatoes to get roughly the same effect as making ketchup.

Here's how the mixture looked before it went into the oven:

It's quite runny at this stage, which is what you want, as it then bakes for two to three hours at 325°F/160°C and a lot of the water is absorbed or steamed off. You can leave the lid off the pot towards the end of cooking to make sure that the texture of the sauce is the way you want it. I'd recommend stirring the beans every half-hour, too, so that they don't stick to the bottom.

After baking, the beans looked like this:

You can see from the line on the side of the pot how much the liquid level has dropped.

While I had the oven on, I also baked a couple of our Small Wonder spaghetti squash. I've been picking these for two weeks now and on Thursday I harvested the first of the New England Sugar Pie pumpkins, too:

In the past I've always cut spaghetti squash open (usually rather nervously, with a big knife and a conviction that I am about to lose a finger), scooped out the seeds and then baked them in the oven for about an hour. This week I discovered that you can also microwave the fruit, with much more speedy results. I also found out that you can cook them whole and remove the seeds after cooking them, which makes them a lot easier to deal with. The important point to remember if you cook them whole, whether in the microwave or in the oven, is to pierce the skin in several places with a knife. Otherwise you'll have an exploding squash on your hands. And all over your oven...

I tried this new method out today. It was a great improvement: once cooked, the skin was easy to cut through and the seeds came out with no bother at all, leaving the soft yellow flesh to fall away from the outer shells. This is definitely the best way of cooking them: no more near-accidents with big sharp knives and smooth-skinned squashes for me!

Spaghetti squash is a versatile vegetable - you can serve it as a side dish with some butter or oil and pepper, or use the strands in the place of pasta as part of a low-carbohydrate main course. With these ones I'm planning to stir in some parmesan and seasoning and then form them into cakes, coat them in flour and shallow fry them for supper. Rather like rösti or hash browns. Hm, the thought of that's making me hungry already and I've only just eaten the baked beans...

UPDATE: I mixed some crushed garlic, parmesan, salt, pepper and flour into the cooled squash, then coated them in more flour, egg, and breadcrumbs and shallow fried them in a mix of oil and butter:

They tasted great and, for once, everyone agreed with me. This is quite an achievement when you consider that Child#2 has recently taken to supervising me at mealtimes to make sure that I haven't sneakily inserted any zucchini into his food.