Fish and chips - a variation...

For 6 months of the year or sometime a little more, we have home grown potatoes. I have noticed that they are much denser than shop bought potatoes, jacket potatoes take 8 or 9 minutes to cook rather than 6 in the microwave.

They also make fantastic chips! Now, I know some people are wary, with perhaps good reason of deep frying food, both from the health side of things but also from the danger that a chip pan can present if not used correctly.

However, I always:

- watch the chip pan like a hawk during the warm up phase
- dry the potato chips thoroughly - water is not a good idea in a hot chip pan - it will spit and fizz
- test with a chip every so often to see whether the fat is hot enough - it is ready as soon as a chip put in starts fizzling straighaway
- toss the chips regularly to ensure even cooking and that they do not stick together or burn.
- keep watching to ensure safety, and turn the cooker down to lowest heat near the end or even off if using electric, the heat from the hob will keep the oil hot enough to cook with.
- remove the pan from the hot ring and ensure the cooker is switched off at the wall before serving.

If the pan does get too hot, it will start smoking. If this happens switch off immediately and remove the pan carefully from the heat. Allow to cool for a few minutes and then resume on a lower heat.

There is usually enough residual heat if using an electric hob after the chips are done to fry some courgettes and/or onions while you serve the chips and fish.

The fish is usually white fish, often cod or haddock, but ling, hake, coley, or pollock is suitable depending on taste, budget and how you regard the stock of fish in the ocean - cod and haddock being more over fished than the others.

The fish is coated in egg and done in breadcrumbs, in this case gluten free ones, in the microwave (if you are lucky enough to keep chickens on your plot then even the egg can be "local"!). The whole dish is served with baked beans though peas, mushy peas etc can be substituted. The advantage of using baken beans is that they can be quickly popped on a plan on top of the dish used to cook the fish in the microwave - as I said you don't want to be distracted from watching the chip pan.

Best carrots ever!

Some while ago I mentioned that we were growing carrots in a tyre stack.

The tyres came from a local tyre and exhaust place, as they have to pay to have them disposed of, they are grateful to anyone that can take them away for free!


The advantages of growing them in this stack are that they can have a very deep layer of soil and compost to grow into and that they are high enough up to be out of the way of carrot flies, who probably aren't able to get through rubber anyway!

So, some were picked for Sunday lunch.....

As you can see they are of considerable length! They are also completely whole and have no tell tale black marks from carrot fly infestation.

Sunday lunch also included the beetroot, peas, broad beans, runner beans and potatoes and a courgette, all from the allotment!

Summer harvest

Plenty of vegetables and fruit to harvest now, makes it all worthwhile, doesn't it!

An awful lot of blackcurrants (with more to come!)
Some raspberries (I think going away during their most productive time meant that the yield was down. Also I think some of the bushes are getting a bit tired.)

More broad beans, peppers from the pots in the house

And lots of onions!

Now the sun's out and things are warming up,  the sweetcorn and the courgettes are doing well

York Festival of Ideas - Food Security - Food and Farming on Radio

 York Festival of ideas running during a good part of June has several talks on food production ,security and distribution and sale.
 
http://yorkfestivalofideas.com/2014/themes/food/

Two programmes I listen to regularly are the Farming Programme
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj8q- on at the rather early hour of 5.40am , but you can podcast or listen again,

and the Food Programme,
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnx3

 on at 12.30pm on Sundays. Both programmes have a lot of good information about food production, sustainability, small producers and retailers.

Allotment Update 30th May 2014

It has been a very wet few days here in Yorkshire so it has been very difficult to do any work in the allotment.

The parsnips from last year have been uprooted and composted as the space is now needed for broccoli, not that much of it has germinated this year. Germination in general has been a bit of a problem, with various brassicas and peas and lettuce not coming up. /rant What is wrong with them, you give them heat, light, loving care, water and they ignore you! /endrant

(I am getting into HTML at the moment, so apologies for the computer syntax creeping in there....!)

I have clipped off a number of mildew laden shoots and leaves from the Chivers Delight minarette apple tree, this will need moving come the winter as it is getting crowded out by the much stronger Gala one. I will have to go over with Diphane again (see http://cashandcarrots.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/mildew-and-blackspot.html 

The grass is getting much too long so strimming may be coming soon. I might try just clipping it and laying it out to dry (ha!) to turn into hay for the guinea pigs (they are the main reason we do let it grow a bit on the side paths)

The potatoes will need earthing up, I have already put straw under the strawberries after doing what seems like a never ending task of removing couch grass from the bed. There are plenty of blackcurrants coming and the bees were busy this morning on the raspberry flowers. 

Beans will also be going out underneath the swing frame http://cashandcarrots.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/recycling-in-allotment.html

peas on earth!

We have peas!

I was getting a bit worried that they hadn't germinated, but they are coming up!

Wet!

I am not sure when it is going to stop raining! Seems like every day has some rain, and so I haven't been up to do much meaningful work in the allotment recently.

One job I have done though is to space the fruit bushes out a bit. The two minarette apple trees and the damson tree have been getting rather crowded by blackcurrants and raspberries and I think last year this, combined with the poor cold start to the year, caused them to have problems. We had blackspot fungus on one of the apples and the damson crop was much reduced, with quite a few of the fruits getting mould. There also seems to be some kind of insect that is laying clear sticky egg sacs on the damsons which is really annoying as left unchecked these seem to burrow into the fruit, damaging the skin and the whole thing goes mouldy.

So, last weekend my youngest daughter and I set to and cleared a bit of ground to extend the fruit patch and then we dug some holes, filled them with some lovely compost from the bottom of the compost bin, and then carefully transplanted two blackcurrant bushes, and several raspberry canes into their new homes, making sure we kept as much of the rootball and associated earth as possible, and made very sure not to damage them.

A week later, and they seem to have taken hold, and the rhubarb that we also split down is and replanted a chunk is sprouting already.

Thus, the two apples and the damson have a lot more growing space, and it is currently clear of weeds etc. So we'll see how they get on.

Current crops are parsnips, a bit of green sprouting broccoli, some sprouts, as well as the occasional tomato and pepper from the plants in the house. Yesterday I had to buy an onion for the first time in 18 months! There's still some green beans in the freezer, and dried kidney beans in a tub, as well as 4 bottles of the parsnip wine I made last year.