Rhubarb and Rose Hip Jam

So we have had some rose hips produced from one of the roses in the front garden, and I had no idea what to do with them. Turns out you can do a lot with them! Rose Hip Tea, Candy, Juice, and of course Jam!

Well anyway I decided last night I would go ahead and try to make some Rhubarb and Rose Hip Jam. Rose hips are very challenging and time consuming to get ready, but they do smell nice when preparing! They smell just like fruit. Well I suppose they are fruit really...

Anyway here goes...

Ingredients

1/2 cup of rose hips

1 cup water

2 cups diced rhubarb

1 cup sugar

1 grated lemon rind

Method

1. Prepare the rose hips. To do this, cut then ends off, then cut in half and scrap out the seeds with either a knife or tea spoon. Collect the flesh part in a cup

2. Combine the rose hip flesh, water and rhubarb in a saucepan and heat to soften the fruit.

3. When the fruit is semi soft, add in the sugar and grated lemon rind and boil until the fruit is soft and at a constituency that you want your jam to be.

4. Pour the finished product into jam jars and then process in a hot water bath for 15-20 minutes.

Let cool over night and place in the fridge to enjoy!

Sunflower

As the weather turned so quickly, I think it is time to have a bit of appreciation for the Sunflower, just to brighten up your day a little. Lets hope the hot sunny weather comes back fast, it is so much nicer than this miserable raining weather! Although saying that, it is nice not to have to water the plants today I have to say!

This is our little sunflower we grew this year, it struggled a little to get going, but now it is just so wonderful and bright. We also have a rogue chilli plant growing in the same pot, maybe it'll be a sunflower chilli!

The wonders of growing fruit, vegetables and flowers

It is so satisfying to watch your garden flourish when you put so much hard work into it to make it look wonderful. And an even better feeling is seeing all the wonderful vegetables and fruit you are growing, which you will get to enjoy!

We have be very successful with potatoes, radishes, spring onions, onions, carrots, broad beans, runner beans and tomatoes already this year!

Here are just a few of what we have growing at the moment in the garden:

Cherry Tomatoes 

Our infamous beefeater tomatoes - these are huge! I am looking forward to weighing them when they are ripe

Scotch Bonnet Chili

Rainbow Chilis

Spearmint

I came up with a fantastic way to reuse plastic bottles, rather than throwing them out and filling a landfall site, I simply cut them open a little and plant vegetables in them. Then I hang them up on my patio and watch them grow!

Lettuce

Baby Strawberries

Pansy

Sweetcorn

Our neighbour gave us a melon plant a while ago, and we have some nice melons starting to grow now. They are just a little bigger than a golf ball.

Melon

And finally some Apples and Pears:

Apple

Pears

Perks of working in a supermarket

My wife recently got a job in a local supermarket and she absolutely loves it. But one of the perks of her job, is at the end of the day when the supermarket closes, anything they are going to through away, we get to have if we donate a little to charity. So last night she came home with five roses that just cost her 50p!

It is always great to have some fresh smelling, colourful flowers to brighten up the house!

It smells so great around the house!

Mula Ko Achar (Radish Pickle)

So we have been growing 'Mula' which is essentially radish, however it is not the usual small red round radishes that we are all so used to seeing, it is actually more like a very large carrot! This type of radish is what you find in Nepal when you go vegetable shopping, and this is the type of radish that they are used to! In fact so much so many Nepalese have never seen a small red round radish before.

The photo below really doesn't show off the sheer size of these radishes, but this is quite a large banana at the bottom and these radishes really are much larger!

So Mula being so popular, and the radish being so big, it is quite hard to actually eat all of it at once, so what the Nepalese tend to do is make Achar (which in English is known as pickle) Pickle is part of their staple food, and it is a great way to add different flavour to your food, along with spice and hotness! Radish pickle is probably the most popular pickles in Nepal and if made right it just tastes fantastic!

Anyway while the wife was at work, I decided to make some Mula Ko Achar for her as a little surprise, plus we have so many Mula growing in the garden, too many to add to a salad!

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

4 medium Mula, cleaned and cut into pieces like fries

2 tablespoons Mustard Seeds

1/4 teaspoon Turmeric Powder

1 Tablespoon Red Chili Powder

2 Green Chillis

1 Tablespoon Paprika

3 Tablespoons Olive Oil

Method:

1. Cut the radish into small long pieces like fries

2. Add the sliced radish into a bowl and sprinkle some salt onto them and let stand for 20 minutes (This is to help extract the water from the radish)

3. Now drain the excessive water and spread the radish onto a paper towel, and then cover with another paper towel and let dry for an hour

4. After an hour, heat the mustard seeds in a frying pan until they start to crackle and then crush it with a pestle and mortar

5. Add the crushed mustard seeds, chili powder, paprika, salt and turmeric powder over the radish

6. Heat the pan up and add the oil. Slice the green chilis. Once the oil has heated, add the green chilis and stir it in for 30 seconds. Be careful as this will spit as the chilis are fresh!

7. Pour the mixture over the spices and mix it very well

8. Now fill an empty jar with the pickles and compress well

9. Close the lid tightly and let it stay in the jar for 5-7 days in a warm and dry place (e.g. airing cupboard)

Note: Do not open the jar in between these days as this will interrupt the fermentation process!

Fermenting Process in progress!

Fresh Ginger Cake

Ginger is one of my favourite root vegetables. Its taste is fantastic, and along with the health benefits, it's a no brainer! Anyway I had some old ginger which had started to grow. I want to plant the growing part soon enough, but it was such a large piece, I thought I would try to make some Ginger cake, but using fresh ginger instead. It was absolutely fantastic!

So if you are a ginger fan, give this a go! Well worth it!

I changed a few ingredients as I didn't have all of them, but that's the beauty of cooking, its like a big experiment you get to eat!

• I replaced the 1/4 teaspoon of all spice with 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/8 teaspoon of ground cloves

• I also replaced the 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda with 3/4 teaspoon of baking powder

• Finally I replaced the 1/2 cup of molasses with 3/8 cup of light brown sugar

Ingredients

1 1/4 cup of plain flour

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground all spice

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup mold molasses

1/3 cup milk

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup butter, melted

1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger root

1 large egg

As a substitution for 1 teaspoon of allspice, you can use 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves, and a pinch of ground nutmeg.

To substitute baking powder for baking soda, simply use three times the amount of baking powder as you would baking soda.

To substitute one cup of molasses with one of the following:

• 1 cup dark corn syrup, honey or maple syrup.

• 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar.

• 3/4 cup granulated sugar, plus 1/4 cup water.

Method

1. Heat the oven to gas mark 4 (180C). Grease and flour 1 loaf tin (approx 8 x 4 in)

2. Combine the flour, cinnamon, all spice, cloves, nutmeg, baking soda and salt in the bowl

3. Combine the molasses, milk, sugar, butter, grated ginger and egg in a bowl. Beat until well mixed. Add the flour mixture, and beat at a low speed, scraping the bowl occasionally, until well mixed

4. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf tin and bake for approximately 30 minutes. Check the cake is fully cooked by inserting a tooth pick into the centre and it comes back out clean.

5. Once the cake is cooked, take out of the oven and let cool for 10 minutes before removing from the tin and placing on a wire rack to cool completely. You can finally sprinkle some powdered sugar on top if you so wish

Cloud Bread

So I decided to try to make some "Cloud Bread" today. I saw a video on facebook of someone doing it and thought, doesn't this look nice!

This is a great idea to make a nice bread-free style sandwich. You can add all your favourite foods inside and just enjoy.

 

Ingredients:

Oil or butter for greasing

4 eggs, separated

50g cream cheese

1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar

Method:

1. Heat the oven to gas mark 2 (150C) and the line 2 baking sheets with baking powder, then give them a light grease with the butter or oil

2. In a large bowl and using electric whisk, beat the egg whites together until stiff peaks form. You should be able to carefully turn the bowl upside down and it will not fall out.

3. In another bowl, put the egg yolks, cream cheese and cream of tartar and whisk together until smooth, pale and frothy. Next, fold the egg whites, a spoonful at a time into the yolk mixture, however be as careful as you can so you do not knock out too much air (this is harder than it sounds!).

4. Carefully plop the mixture onto the prepared baking trays (the fluffier the mixture, the better the outcome) and bake for 20 minutes or until lightly golden on top. Allow to cool for a few minutes before trying to remove from the baking sheets.

Let me know how yours comes out and if you decide to add any additional ingredients! It is always good to experiment and try different things!