The Green Apron

Seed Time

seeds 004 I love this time of year. My seed catalogues arrived last month and I’m making the final decisions on what to plant this season. I’m so full of anticipation. I can see in my minds eye the sun shining down on my garden overflowing with veg and herbs . I don’t see the mess in the garden left from the snow and a winter of neglect or the grey overcast sky. I can taste those first tomatos already, smell the basil and hear the ears of corn hissing on the barbecue. Of course with the last few summers so wet I didnt have quite the overflowing baskets of veg that I’d wanted, but hope springs eternal.

Heres a few things to think about when buying your seeds( vegetable and herb seed rather than flower and tree seed) .

There are many, many seed companies out there. I try and go to privately owned seedsellers as they are more customer friendly. Many of the regular seed companies have been bought by giant chemical companies which aren’t so geared towards the customer.

Unless specified otherwise most seeds available here are grown in mainland Europe . They are not at all adapted for our climate , neither the rainfall nor the temperatures. So try and buy seeds from smaller companies that grow the seeds in conditions similar to ours . The Organic Centre in Leitrim, Irish Seedsavers and Brown Envelope Seeds all stock Irish seeds.

My favorite seed company is Chiltern Seeds. in the UK .You can get seeds for almost anything you can think of from them, Sugar maple , coffee, obscure himalayan flowers. They also carry a wonderful range of herb and veg seed, many heirloom and some organic. The day the catalogue arrives is one of the best days of the year for me. I then spend weeks reading the catalogue and refining my seed list. ( super plant nerd)

Try some heritage varieties of seed .They are often much more resistant to disease and have better flavour.

F1 seed is expensive and not necessarily worth the money.

Buy seeds for early varieties of plants if you are planting in an exposed area like a hillside . This gives a better chance of you getting a decent crop.

I know its easier said than done but dont get carried away and buy a gazillion packets of seed . You’ll just feel bad when you can’t deal with them all. Make a plan. Do you really eat enough swedes to warrant planting a whole row of them?.I refuse to plant cauliflower anymore because I just don’t like it enough to bother. I never plant spinach either because swiss chard gives me my greens and yummy stems too, so we put in loads of that.

Plant more of what you love and vegetables that are expensive to buy like mangetout.

Do you really need a whole packet of seed for everything. If you only need 5 tomato plants . buying a packet of seed means either keeping excess seeds for later years or sowing the whole lot and then having a whole bunch of baby tomato plants to repot and get rid of ( I never have the heart to just throw the excess away) Buy your plants from a local grower in your market or beg them from somebody who grows . They are usually happy to share . This goes for other veg such as cucumber, courgette and pumpkin.

You can always buy more seed later. Don’t think that because you havent figured out the whole seasons planting you cant buy the seed yet. Get what you need to start and chill.

Buy one packet of seed of something completely different you’ve never tried before. We tried some japanese greens last year yum!

If you are going to plant a lot of anything it may be worth your while getting commercial seed . I got the Moles commercial seed catalogue last year and bought some of my seeds from them.I bought 100 pumpkin seeds from them for the price of a a normal retail pack containing 10 seeds.(Of course them I had far too many pumpkin plants so I was pushing them on visistors, but hey)

Cheap seed from Lidl or Aldi seems to work fine for some people . Thats where my parsley is from. I prefer for more important crops like tomato to spend a bit more on my seed.

Find yourself a good local seedsuplier . I get most of my seed from Gardenworld in Ellen St Limerick. 061 414202, limerickgarden@eircom.net . They ordered my commercial seed for me and carry a good stock of Suttons, Thompson and Morgan, Suffolk and RHS seed.

Keep records. I promise myself every year that I’ll keep a perfect record of everything I planted and when and how it performed. This year I’ll definitely do it.

Have fun picking your seeds!

Stuffed Mushrooms

stuffed mushrooms with smoked bacon

I love stuffed mushrooms and now I have access to reasonably priced large mushrooms they have become a regular meal in our house.

They are simple and quick to make and very very yummy. You can freeze them either cooked or uncooked and reheating them from the fridge works well too. Very handy for feeding visitors and they look much more complicated than they are so you can impress everyone with your culinary genius .

I especially love to make this when the wild mushrooms are out as their flavour is so good.

About 2 mushrooms per person is enough for normal people . Hobbits or good eaters need more like 3-4 each. This is enough for a breakfast, lunch or starter/ side dish serving.

Big Flat mushrooms are the way to go here . If you can’t find them in the supermarket try your local market or the wholesaler. They should cost the same price as smaller shrooms so argue if someone tries to charge a giant mushroom premium.

I get punnets from the wholesaler which hold about 25-30 mushrooms and cost about 6.50 euro. lovely big flat shrooms

Stuffed Mushrooms

The basic recipe is to fry the mushrooms in a little olive oil or butter untill slightly soft , then stuff and bake at 200 degrees for about 10- 15 mins .You can remove the stem if you like and either discard or add to the stuffing but I usually just leave it in unless its huge.

The exciting part is the stuffing, you need about 2 tablespoons of stuffing per shroom.

Our usual stuffing (enough for 4 mushrooms)

breadcrumbs ( see note below) from about 2 slices of bread

chopped small onion or shallot

chopped garlic (2 cloves)

Chopped mushroom stem

chopped pepper( about 2T) red ,green or yellow

olive oil about 1T

salt and pepper

Optional :any fresh herbs you have such as parsley, rosemary, oregano, chives can be added, chop finely and add a tsp to the stuffing before putting into the mushrooms. Bacon pieces can also be added to the frying pan with the onions.

note:When we make stuffing we don’t use fine bread crumbs. We pull bread(crusts and all) into the smallest pieces we can with our hands and use that. This means there is a great variation in size between pieces as sometimes the stuffing maker gets bored with pulling apart bread and leaves big hunks but hey it all tastes the same.

To make the stuffing fry up the onion , pepper , mushroom and garlic in olive oil until soft, then add the bread crumbs, and fry gently for a minute or two until all the olive oil has been soaked into the bread. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Then place about 2 T of the stuffing on the cooked mushroom and then bake .You can also sprinkle some cheese on the stuffing before baking . We usually use a cheddar but try different ones.

Bake it for 10 mins then check to see if it needs any more time. The mushroom should be soft with its gorgeous juices oozing out into the baking dish. (With the wild mushrooms the juice is an inky black and fantastic).

We experiment a bit with stuffings and have made some great mushrooms stuffed with pesto, sundried tomatos and pine nuts. Goats cheese, balsamic vinegar and pine nut mushrooms were excellent too. Ive seen recipes for crab stuffed mushrooms which look fantastic . Must make those. Also try mushrooms stuffed with a mexican style mince beef or spanish rice with chorizo.

Sneaky Pumpkin Soup

soup I have my friend Annamarie to thank for this recipe. By accident she discovered that soup made with sweet orange vegetables such as sweet potato, squash or pumpkin can be disguised to get kids to eat it without complaint. Now I dunno about you but I dont know any kids who will happily eat any of those veg much less in soup form. The secret ingredient is a couple of cans of tomatos added to the soup. Thats it . It then tastes like canned tomato soup all sweet and yummy and all kids eat seem to like that. Mine now actually request that I make it once a week or so.

You can then use leftover soup as a pasta sauce or a chili base.This is a great simple and fast recipe. Thanks Annamarie!.

We roast the pumpkin first as it gives a better depth of flavour but you dont have to. This is a rough recipe, its very much adjust to personal taste.

Pumpkin Soup

about 6 cups pumpkin

few Tb olive oil

3 med onions

2-4 cloves garlic

2 pts stock, vegetable or chicken

salt and pepper to taste

2cans or more of tomatos

(I also threw in a few carrots for extra veggieness but thats not required.)

Peel and roughly chop pumpkin. Place in a roasting tray and drizzle with olive oil. Roast at 200 deg for about 40 mins untill nicely brown and soft.

Chop the onions and garlic roughly and fry in some olive oil until soft.

Add all the rest of the ingredients and cook for about 10 minson a medium heat then whizz up with a hand blender. check the seasoning and if you need more tomato or a bit more liquid.

Serve with a nice crusty bread or savory scones. You can drizzle a bit of cream on it and sprinkle some grated cheese. Yumm! soup

Make friends with your Fruit and Veg Wholesaler

Bramley apples

Yesterday I went to the fruit and vegetable wholesale warehouse and stocked up on onions and apples for Christmas cooking.

Most people don’t realise that fruit wholesalers aren’t just for producers they will sell to anybody with cash. If you intend to make a batch of anything to freeze or just use a lot of any particular fruit or veg its well worth checking the price at the wholesaler. Fruit and veg in season can be extremely cheap and even out of season is often still a bargain. However more luxury produce may not be cheaper than the multinationals price especially when they are having a special so do your research.

I bought 13kg of Irish cooking apples for 9 euro . Thats a lot of apples and a great deal cheaper than in the supermarkets. Since they will keep for weeks its well worth it even if you arent making lots of chutneys and jellies like me. That’ll make a lot of apple pie. If you cant get through that amount share with somebody else. The bag of giant spanish onions I bought cost 8 euro and weighed 20 kg. Excellent. I also picked up a 5 pound punnet of flat mushrooms for stuffng for a fraction of the supermaket price.

They often have specials on fruit like bananas which are too ripe to sell to supermakets but are perfect for smoothies and banana bread . Banana freeze well for either of these.

Speaking of smoothies. Frozen fruit for smoothies is very expensive to buy in supermarkets so try and source it somewhere else. Fruit wholesalers may have it but not always . Try a local fruit farm or a frozen food supplier. Again they will sell to anyone not just producers. They also often have an extensive range of fruit not normally available in supermarkets. Fruit such as Raspberries can be bought as whole fruit or broken fruit . Broken is obviously cheaper and fine for smoothies and most cooking so ask the supplier. Whether whole or broken though, its still a lot cheaper.The only issue is that they usually come in 10 kg boxes so you need to have space in the freezer.

Apple Pie Cake

apple pie cake This is the cake we take when visiting as everyone seems to love it. Its so cinnamony, appley and yummy. This is another one of the cakes Mom used to sell at the market. It takes very little time to make and it uses up those eating apples sitting at the bottom of the fruit bowl getting wrinkled.

Apple Pie Cake

1/2 cup butter (4oz)

1 egg slightly beaten

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup flour

1tsp baking powder

1tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/8tsp vanilla

2 cups chopped apple (eating apples)

1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts(optional)

Grease a 9 inch pie pan

Melt butter , remove from heat and add sugar and egg. Mix in rest of ingredients.

Spread into pan.Bake at 160C for 35-40 mins. serve warm with icecream or whipped cream.

You can peel the apples if you like but I usually leave the peel on . It doesnt affect the pie and adds that tiny bit of roughage.( its kind of pretend healthy)

I made it for our local ICA ladies and they loved it and you can bet the ICA are hard to impress as they are all excellent bakers.

Meat Pie and Pasties

Yum yum yum !. I love Meat Pie.

Not a very elegant name and somewhat misleading as the pie consists mostly of various vegetables. Mom makes it in the winter and I’ve started too as its a perfect winter meal.The recipe we use is my Grandmas. This is a traditional recipe among the Finns in Northern Michigan.

The quantities I’m using below provide about 25 portions . Now I know you are going “what! how much” but hey its yummy and freezes well and is so inexpensive and yet healthy ( well kinda healthy if you ignore the butter).

The pasties are great for lunches, picnics and dinner, and I have happy kids at the moment as they’ve had pasties for school lunch all week.

Meat pie and Pasty Filling

1x 800g pack of Beef mince

2.5 kg potatoes

750 grams carrots

3 medium onions

3 parsnips( optional )

1 medium swede turnip (rutabega)

salt and pepper to taste about 1T salt and 1tsp pepper

Scrub the vegetables and peel the swede (you can peel them all but I dont bother) Cut all the veg into cubes abut 1cm square. Put them in a bowl and cover with water and leave to soak for a few hours . This is to keep the pie moist. You can skip this step but the pie is drier.

Drain the veg and mix in the mince and salt and pepper. Thats it, filling made.

To assemble the pie : Fill a pie pan with the filling mix, dab some butter on the top and the cover the filling with your pastry of choice. We use a butter pastry but you could also use a suet or lard pastry. Cut slits in the top of the pie.

Bake at 160 for 1 – 1/12 hours . keep poking the centre of the pie to check if the veg are done . I also put a loose piece of tinfoil across the top of the pie to prevent the top from overcooking. You can also brush the top of the pie and pasties with beaten egg.

Serve with a good tomato chutney or relish or as the kids do, ketchup.

For pasties: roll your pastry into circles and put filling on one side of the circle. brush water around the edge of the pastry. flip the other side of the pastry over and crimp the edges. Cut slits in the top. Bake for about 40 mins.

( my pasties dont look very neat. Im a bit out of practise but they tasted grrreat!)

This made two big meat pies with 8- 10 portions each and sixteen medium size pasties.

You can vary the vegetables used and the amount and type of meat added . Its a flexible recipe. ( Don’t tell Mom I said that). Replace 1/2 the beef with ground pork. Try it with lamb mince and maybe some rosemary. Add some chopped courgette. We made one where we whizzed the veg up a bit more finely, added the mince, some chard, allspice, lots of black pepper, some raisins and some flaked almonds to make a kind of cross between a medieval dish and a pilaf. That was very tasty too.

You can freeze the ready made pies or pasties, cooked or uncooked, or just freeze the filling.

Chocolate Pecan Pie

pecan pie

Today my house smells fantastic as it smells of baking Pecan Pies. I always make them at this time of year for Dads birthday as he adores them and they are hard to find here. I always make one for Dad and one for us as we love them too.

So I’m looking at the recipe which is incredibly easy and wondering why we dont have them all the time. It used to be that pecans were hard to find and very expensive and maybe thats why Pecan Pie is troublesome to make in my mind. Now Pecans are readily available and reasonably priced so there is no reason to not make them as often as you like ( in my case every week if I get a chance). Like I said this is terribly easy to make and absolutely scrummy. Make a couple as they taste so good and should freeze okay.

Chocolate Pecan Pie

2oz chocolate (I use 70 %)

2oz butter

3 eggs beaten

1/2cup sugar

3/4cup golden syrup

3/4cup pecan halves

Pie crust uncooked(9 inch)

Melt the chocolate and butter together. Add the beaten eggs, sugar and syrup. Mix in pecan halves. Pour the mixture into pie shell.

Bake at 40-45 mins until set at 180 c. Serve the pie warm or cold with whipped cream.Cut the pieces small as its very rich , you can always have a second one.

How straightforward is that. I can’t believe I never remember how simple it is. Now I must take Dad down his pie before my ravening hordes devour it.

This recipe is adapted from the recipe in “Best of the Best from New England Cookbook” published by Quail Ridge Press.

Lemon Scones

scones I spent the day making both raspberry and strawberry preserve for saturdays market. The smell of strawberry preserve filling the house made me reach for a bowl to whip up a batch of scones to carry that gorgeous preserve.

I decided today to make lemon to compliment the fresh strawberry preserve. The basic scone recipe ( without the lemon) is our family recipe which won us many an award in cookery competitions when we were kids. Fast and simple ,but delicious.

Lemon Scones

1lb flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

4oz butter or margarine

2 T sugar

2 eggs beaten with enough milk to make 1/2 pt of liquid

zest of one lemon

Put dry ingredients in a bowl. Rub in the butter or margarine. Mix in lemon zest. Add 4/5 of the liquid and mix well, if the mixture is too dry add a bit more liquid or if wet add a bit of flour. Dont overhandle the dough or the scones will be tough . Either roll out or flatten the dough by hand (1inch or less) cut into shapes (we just cut it into squares as you can see) put on lightly floured baking tray .Brush with the remaining egg and milk mixture. Bake 8-10 mins at 200 degrees.

spread with butter and jam yum!

I must say we all really like the lemon flavour in these scones it went with the strawberry perfectly. We didnt even wait for the strawberry preserve to set .We ate it hot out of the jar slathered on the hot fresh scones.

To make cinnamon and orange scones add 1 tsp ground cinnamon to the above recipe ,substitute orange zest for lemon and add the juice of the orange to the mixture. We had these last week and they were so good.Nice and warming for the autumn.

For savory scones use the above recipe without lemon or sugar . You can leave them as is or add herbs or grated cheese. These are especially excellent with soups.

I was ably assisted in the making of these by Athene and Tess our current wwoofer. Athene brushing the scones with egg mixture

Chicken Liver Pate

I’m feeling kind of smug here as I’ve already got some of my christmas cooking done . Two big tubs of chicken liver pate ( now in the freezer).

On Saturday I passed the only butcher in Limerick which has chicken livers so I figured I’d pick some up and get the pate making out of the way. I seem to end up every Christmas Eve morning trying to fit in making pate and making a gazillion cookies . We always have pate at Christmas as part of our Christmas Eve scandinavian feast.

Pate is a lot simpler to make than most people think and this is very straightforward and quick recipe. It tastes fantastic . Its one of our celebration recipes. Anytime we are pulling out all the stops the pate gets made

Chicken Liver Pate
1lb Chicken livers
1lb onions
2oz butter
shot of brandy or whiskey(optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
few fresh sage leaves(optional)

Fry up the onions with the liver in the butter untill the liver is cooked so well that you cant see any pinkness left (about 45 min)

Throw it into a food processor and whizz it untill smooth, add salt and pepper to taste. add the booze and sage or if not using booze add some water.You want the pate to be a thick pouring consistancy.(porridgey)

Pour into a bowl or dish, melt a few tablespoons of butter and pour it over the top to seal the pate.

Keep refridgerated and eat within the week.

This recipe makes two bowls full . We always double or triple the recipe as it freezes well and should be fine for about 6 month in there.

We serve it on toast or biscuits with a bit of sweet jelly. (Damson jelly in the picture)

Autumn Jellies

hedgrow berries

Make hay while the sun shines , or in our case jelly. Its time to get out there and pick whatever berries and fruit you can before the rain destroys them, and turn them into gorgeous jewel coloured homemade jellies. Last week we spent Friday morning picking our way along the neighbour’s hedge and ended up making Wild Crabapple Jelly, Wild Damson Jelly and a Hedgerow Jelly.Yumm!

Jelly is basically a jam with all the bits taken out. Our basic jelly recipe is fairly straightforward.

Apple Jelly

Fill a pot 3/4 full of apples cut into quarter(dont peel or core them)

Add enough water to just cover the apples

cook for about 45 minutes until the apples have gone to mush

put in a jelly bag and leave to drain above a bowl for at least an hour if not overnight

measure the resulting juice and put it back into a pot with 1 pound of sugar for every pint of juice. (The juice will be cloudy but adding the sugar and heating will clear it)

Cook up until it reaches setting point ( see rhubarb jam recipe) and skim off any sugar foam floating on top.

pour jelly into pots and lid. You can add a few cloves to each pot or a pinch of cinnamon .

Tip: Buy a jelly bag, They are fairly inexpensive and give a clearer jelly However if you are stuck without one use many layers of cheesecloth or sacrifice a pillowcase to strain the jelly juice from the pulp.

The main apples we use are cooking apples ( mostly bramley seedling). When we can get them we use windfalls from any apples both cookers and eaters . The smaller and greener the better for the most pectin. Each variety of apple produces a different flavoured jelly and some colour variation. When making crabapple jelly we add some cooking apples to the pot of crabapples as we find pure crabapple jelly a bit too sour for most tastes.

So just adapt the basic apple recipe for other jellies

Okay now you have the basic recipe/method. Apples have a great deal of natural pectin (which is what sets the jelly) and when you mix them up with other berries the apples pectin makes up for the lack in other berries (blackberries and elderberries especially are low in pectin). Thus you don’t need to use jam sugar or any other artificial setting agent.

Damson Jelly

recipe as above but 1/3 damson 2/3 apple

Hedgerow Jelly

We found some early elderberries and added some haws ,blackberries crabs and damsons to the pot . An equal amount of windfall apples was then added and then the whole lot cooked up as above.

hedgerow berries berries cooked up jelly draining jelly ready to be poured

Blackberry, Elderberry, Hawthorn, Rosehip and Rowanberry Jelly are made the same as Damson Jelly.