How does my garden grow?

We came back from a week in Wales to some very bedraggled looking tomato plants in our little vegetable plot. However, they are still covered in a hundred weight of green tomatoes. Having fried our green tomatoes a week or so ago I decided to have a try at doing something else with them. If they all survive to ripeness I will be very pleased and surprised, but we will also have a ridiculous number of tomatoes. Using some up early on seems like a good plan!

Its preserving time of year, and Dan loves a chutney with his curry, so I decided to try my hand at Green Tomato Chutney. I started from Mrs Beeston's (ripe) tomato chutney recipe, but added a few small chillies to give it a kick and some sultanas for sweetness since the green tomatoes are a bit less sweet than their ripe version.

Initial 'licking the spoon' taste tests seem positive; its got quite a kick from the cillies, but the flavours are good. This could go with curry or as a dip with poppadoms.



I've also had a go at green tomato salsa, and we've had the fried green tomatoes again, but with chorizo instead of smokey bacon this time, which was a better combination.

In other news, we had mussels cooked in cider rather than the traditional wine. Pretty good, but I think wine is ultimately the better choice.

Fried Green Tomatoes

but not at the Whistle-Stop Cafe.

As I mentioned in my last post I spotted the recipe for these in my new cookbook, the Riverford Farm recipe book. And how could I resist the recipe when I have a vegetable patch completely taken over by monster tomato plants covered in not-yet-ripe tomatoes?



Another lure of the recipe was the opportunity to finally crack open my bag of polenta; an ingredient I have never used.

So I picked tomatoes, dipped them in egg then polenta. Fried some streaky bacon, then fried the tomatoes in the bacon fat. DONE (as Mr Ramsay would say).



They would make an excellent side dish, or part of a tapas selection. The same method would probably be nice with ripe tomatoes too, and a hint of paprika or chilli in the polenta could be good.

We had the tomatoes with new potatoes baked in parchment paper - the recipe came from the same book. I'd never thought to bake new potatoes before, but you just toss a handful of new potatoes in olive oil, herbs, salt and pepper. Parcel them up with a couple of cloves of garlice inside some baking parchment and bake for about 40 minutes. Simples.



So the verdict on the new cook book is a resounding thumbs up so far. The verdict on the tomato growing probably should be deferred until we see if they survive until they're ripe, but at least we've had one meal from the plants, and they were pretty good.

A little trip to Devon

A couple of days in Devon last week was the perfect antidote to the 9-5 blues.



The scenery was quintissentially English, all summer prettiness and hazy lazy sunshine.

We ate fish and chips and too much icecream.



We walked along the seafront and picked which boat we would have if we were the boating types.



We went to concerts in the impressive Great Hall at Dartington.

I ate my first ever whole crab - cracked the claws myself and everything!



We napped in the afternoon. And had bacon for breakfast.

We discovered that we were only a few miles from the Riverford Farm shop - the recipe for rhubarb and strawberry crumble which I made in May came from their website - so we stopped by and bought some fruit and veg on the way home. Yummy. Their website is here.

Aahhhhh.....if only it had been more than just a couple of days.

My take-home treat? I have aquired a copy of the Riverford Farm cook book, which is chock-full of brilliant ideas for vegetables; something which I think is overlooked in the majority of recipe books. This week I will be putting them (and myself) to the test when I attempt Fried Green Tomatoes. My monster tomato plants are currently covered in not-quite-ripe tomatoes, so this seems the perfect recipe to get a sneak preview of whether they're going to be any good.

Eggs eggs eggs

Guess what I've been cooking this week?.....

Yep. Eggs indeed.

Having acheived the roaring success that was Eggs Benedict (with a little help from Mr Oliver) it this week seemed like it was time to go beyond the omelette/fried/scrambled egg options once more.

So after a trawl through the recipe shelf two interesting options presented themselves. Although both billed themselves as breakfast dishes I thought they would do very well for week-night dinners.

And so, we have had Rick Stein's pithily titled Mildly spiced potato curry with cumin, black mustard seeds and coriander, topped with a poached egg, which was what it said really. A pretty good, quick, mild curry. I added a couple of handfuls of spinach (got to get in those 5-a-day somehow!) and I think it would be better with chopped boiled egg rather than poached.
And also Silvana Franco's Saucy Eggs and tomatoes.

Both were pretty good options for Veggie dinners, but I did prefer the Tomato Eggs.

And see - it even looked like the picture in the book!


Here's the method for the tomato eggs (for 1 as a dinner)

Take 1/2 can tomatoes and put in a heavy saucepan or deep frying pan
Add 1 clove of garlic (finely chopped)
Also add about 100ml boiling water, salt and papper, and a pinch of cayenne pepper.
Heat through stirring frequently until the tomatoes start to break down a bit.
Then add about 3/4 of a red bell pepper, cut into strips.
Allow to heat through on a gentle heat for about 15 mins, or until the peppers start to soften (the recipe directs you to grill the peppers then peel off the skin - I couldn't be bothered).
Make to hollows in the sauce mixture and break in the eggs. Leave on the medium heat until the eggs are cooked. I had the oven on anyway, so just finished off the eggs for 5 mins at 180C which sped things up a little.
Serve with bread or toast.