Seasonal News and a Recipe for Summer

You know what I love about Summer? Growing things and being almost self suffient on the produce from the garden. This year there’s a new addition to our small garden, a plastic greenhouse. Not one of those small things from Wilko that’s just a bit of plastic over 4 shelves. Oh no, this is a half decent sized thing. 6ft tall x 5ft wide x 2.5 ft deep with shelving on both sides and a space in the middle. We have a small Victorian Terrace size garden and not enough room for a proper Greenhouse. This fitted perfectly under the Olive tree on my narrow border. No base needed just levelled the ground and pinned the frame to it using tent pins. We’ll see if it lasts through the Winter winds, but so far it really has been a joy. And being plastic it means Hubby and I don’t have to argue about whether it’s called a Glassss House or a Glarse House!

The Greenhouse

I also invested in some self watering plant pots. They’re an outer pot, which you fill with water, and an inner funnel shaped insert that you plant your plant in. It means the roots are pretty much always in water but it seems to work. I haven’t had to water the Tomatoes for a month. On the down side, they’ve grown into Triffids and I’ve had to cut the top off them as they tried to grow their way out of the Greenhouse.

Armed with a new confidence and several YouTube videos spurring me on, I tried my hand at growing a Mango from seed and growing Ginger to go with the Chillies and Scotch Bonnet Peppers I planted from seed saved from the Peppers.

Growing the Mango from seed involved cracking the outer shell of a Mango seed, wrapping the strange looking inner seed in some damp kitchen towel and placing it in a plastic bag for 3 weeks. I bought a Julie Mango from my local Caribbean shop, you can also get them from Asian food shops when they’re in season. They’re the ones I remember from my Grandmother’s garden in Trinidad. They’re smaller and so much more delicious than the ones you buy in the Supermarket, but you can use any Mango really.

If you’d like to try your hand there are two YouTube videos with two different methods I’d recommend. One uses the damp towel and plastic bag method I used. The other method involves planting the inner seed directly into soil. The second method looks more fun and I’ll try that next time BUT avoid the sharp knife! Maybe next year I’ll be sharing some home grown Mango recipes!

This year I was a little worried that having moved from Ivy Lodge I would miss all the Cherries, Plums and Apples that I used to gather for my Summer and Autumn baking. Luckily the trees around the local Country Park where I run are heavy with Cherries this year. And I discovered yet another type of Cherry. Not the big juicy black ones, or the small hard red ones, but smaller red and orange/red ones, soft and bursting with flavour.

This is my take on a Fruit Cobbler. I made the first one using Rhubarb from the garden but I know many people aren’t fans of Rhubarb so I took the chance to adapt it for Cherries. I’m sure you can use any fruit you like that’s soft and juicy. I’m wondering if it’s possible to grown an Almond Tree from seed……

Cherry Cobbler

350g Cherries
80g Plain Flour
1 Tsp Baking Powder
30g Almond Flour
45g Butter, cubed
75ml Double Cream
50g Demerara Sugar + 2 Tsp
1 Tsp Amaretto + optional Flaked Almonds

This is happily a very quick recipe. The small orange/red Cherries are easy to stone, just squeeze them gently and the stones pop out. All the ingredients fit into a small food blender and you can wiz this up in just a few minutes, no need to get a big mixer out. I used the chopper/mixer that attaches to my stick blender and it took minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180 deg Celsius.
Add the cherries to a deep (at least 5cm) baking dish, An 18cm pyrex casserole dish worked for me, Sprinkle on the 2 teaspoons of sugar and the teaspoon of Amaretto.

Place the flour, almond flour, baking powder and sugar in the mixer. Add the butter and wiz using the chopping blade or the plastic mixing blade until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Stir in the cream until the mixture is combined.

Use a teaspoon or icecream scoop, scoop out walnut sized balls and place randomly but evenly over the fruit mixture. Don’t worry if there are gaps, the mixture spreads.

Bake for 35 minutes until the cobbler topipng is golden. Sprinkle with the flaked almonds. Allow to cool slightly before eating. Enjoy!