Pumpkin Stew recipe.....

Today's recipe is for pumpkin stew and is one I have kind of used for years, but never really felt it was quite wintery enough in terms of how filling it is.

But then the great Pete Lawrence published his cook book and I realised I'd been missing an extra ingredient that makes this a proper hearty stew, and that ingredient folks is lentils!!

 

So here's the recipe......

I use a couple of medium sized red onions, a clove of garlic, 2 carrots and 1 medium sized pumpkin. Sweat off the onions and garlic in a pan with some olive oil, add the carrots and pumpkin once the onions are transluscent and cook them all together for 5 minutes. Then add a litre of stock, and around 200 grams of lentils and cook on a slow heat until the lentils are cooked. I serve it exactly as it is at this point, with salt and pepper to taste and a swirl of sour cream and some sourdough bread. Pete on the other hand, says remove the pumpkin chunks, blitz everything else in a food processor and then add the pumpkin and stir in some cream. He's a famous media type so offers a bit more style perhaps!! 

Whichever way you choose to serve your stew, it's delicious, rich and very filling. 

If you have Pete's book you'll see he also has celery in his recipe but I cannot stomach celery and believe it to be the work of the devil!! However, you might like to add celery....

Wordless Wednesday

 

Today's pumpkin recipe is......

Risotto!!

Pumpkin risotto is rich, filling and delicious. And it's easy to make which is always a bonus.

I know there are a fair few methods out there but this is mine, which works for me.

Chop up a small/medium pumpkin or squash, deseed and peel and pop it into a roasting dish with some garlic cloves, salt, pepper and a sprinkling of an oil of your choice, and roast in the oven on 180 for 40/45 minutes or until it's cooked. If you end up roasting too much don't panic because you can always use what's left to make yesterday's soup!! But to be honest, I don't think you can have too much pumpkin in this recipe.

Whilst your pumpkin is cooking slowly heat some stock on the stove. You'll need about 2 pints for 4 people. 

Once it's cooked you're ready to make your risotto. Fry an onion in some oil in a non stick pan, and add the cooked garlic from the tray the pumpkin has been roasted in. Then add your risotto rice(I use arborio) and ensure its covered with the oils in the pan. I use a good handful per person and then add a bit extra for good luck at the end! Then add a good glass of white wine and stir until that's all been absorbed by the rice. The secret to a good risotto is stirring!!

At this point add half the pumpkin and then a ladle of stock at a time, waiting to add the next ladle full until the rice has absorbed the previous one. Slowly as the rice absorbs more and more stick it will cook through and just keep tasting until it's cooked enough for you. Once there is only one more ladle of stock left add the remaining stock and the remaining pumpkin to the risotto along with a good serving of Parmesan or other cheese of your choice and salt and pepper to taste. I usually add a good handful of chopped parsley as well as the freshness of the parsley cuts through the richness of the rest of the dish.

Then turn the heat off and leave the pan for 5 minutes just to let all the flavours settle and then serve and eat.

 

The very lovely Ryan Lewis of @NagsHeadFarm also commented this morning that he asks for local pumpkin insides to be dropped to him for chicken food so if you really struggle to use all your pumpkin flesh, why not find a local chicken keeper and offer it to them? You might even end up getting some eggs back in return!

Next recipe incoming tomorrow!!

Please don't play with your food.....

I am a big fan of pumpkins. There are loads of different varieties from tiny Baby Bears to the enormous ones that are grown competitively. They're fun to grow, and great to eat in a huge variety of recipes; they can be roasted, spiralized, used in risotto, in pies, pastries and pasties, made into delicious soup and far, far more.

But what do we immediately think of when we think of a pumpkin? More and more they are part of our Halloween decorations, which of course is fine, but in so many households the precious flesh, that delicious orange filling, goes straight into the bin without a second thought.

Brace yourself for this but in 2014, 80,000 tonnes of pumpkin flesh went to landfill. 

80,000 tonnes when people are struggling to feed their children.

80,000 tonnes when we know children across the globe are dying, malnourished and weak.

80,000 tonnes when some older people are having to choose between eating and heating.

 

I deeply believe this is wrong. The core of my being screams when I hear these things and yet it continues. The supermarkets are as guilty as anyone, often selling the fruits as a carving kit, as if it isn't food and with very little information about what else you can do with a pumpkin but carve it. 

And as a nation we aren't used to cooking pumpkins and squash, with some people not having a clue how to prepare it, how to cook it or just what a great ingredient it is for so many dishes. And whereas we have books that relate to gluts of apples and the pumpkins cousin, the courgette, as yet a pumpkin and squash book is yet to appear.

 

So what to do about this enormous waste? 

Well this is just little old me but I'm going to try to blog as many pumpkin recipes as I can in the next few weeks in the lead up to Halloween and I ask you to join in. Share and cook the recipes, post recipes and photos of what you're cooking with your pumpkins and squash and be prepared to talk to people about the horror of this waste.

My first recipe is pumpkin and chilli soup which is the easiest recipe ever!!

Grab a pumpkin, peel and deseed it and chop it into pieces approx 1" in size. Pop the flesh into a roasting dish and roast for around 40-45 minutes or until soft, covered just with a sprinkling of olive oil and some salt and pepper.

In the meantime fry one onion and a chilli, chopped and deseeded if you don't want too much kick, and when your pumpkin is cooked, put it and your onion and chilli mix into a bowl. Add some stock, and blitz with a hand blender until smooth. And that is it!! 

Serve with a dollop of sour cream, and with a few of the pumpkin seeds, toasted, scattered on top. 

And if there's loads left over, it freezes really well.

 

Next recipe coming soon!!

Helping the hedgehogs..........and other important stuff

This week, following a conversation at a meeting with Avon Wildlife Trust's new Chief Exec, Ian Barrett, about hedgehogs and slug pellets, and then a tweet from Ian linking a piece about toads being two thirds lost in the last 30 years, I began to really think about what seem to be really obvious links between loss of species that eat slugs and metaldehyde slug pellets. Now there's been lots of work done in this and I'm no scientist, so I'll post some links below, but my thoughts turned to why we use them.

I know lots of people work very hard to ensure they use only the organic pellets, but from the beginning of the season the garden centres and gardening sections of all the big superstores are full of metaldehyde type pellets. Usually these are next to advertising boards with huge photos of molluscs on, as if by mid March we need reminding of the blighters faces! For many years gardeners picked them up without thinking about the results on the local wildlife. Indeed that thought was never had. 

 

Hedgehogs, thrushes and toads were aplenty and our gardens were tidy places, places where nature was controlled. 

But today in 2016 there are some chilling stats.

We've lost 97% of our hedgehogs.

Thrush species are rapidly declining.

We've lost two thirds of our toads.

We've lost 90% of our wildflower meadows.

These stats aren't new. We know all this and so I wondered why we continue to use chemicals in our gardens that we all know are harmful to nature? 

I wondered what made us think it was ok?

But then I also realised that there's some really confusing advice out there, which leaves most of us scratching our heads and pondering.

So here are some thoughts......

Coffee grounds, whilst some feel they work, are not allowed to officially be used for slug prevention. So says the EU and that's why it's often hard to access them as giving away anything that's waste is complex. But equally they're great for soil conditioner and if that means a pile of it ends up round your prize Delphiniums, then I salute you!!

Beer traps whilst great mean the slugs are traipsing across your garden towards the yeast and will graze on the way, meaning they could munch your lettuces on the way to the pub!!

But beer traps can be a good part of a multi pronged attack.

Good, thick copper tapes do work but if you buy the thinner stuff, they're not overly bothered if they really want your prize dahlias. So unless you've got a fortune to spend, I wouldn't bother.

The organic pellets do work and as I write are deemed harmless to any creature who might eat said slug. But there is aquestion as to whether putting something that they like onto your garden, may just attract more molluscs in as they find them delicious. And who's to say they won't snack on your border before they eat the pellets? 

Nematodes do work but are an expensive option that will need applying regularly to ensure they work. Your neighbours of course won't have used nematodes so as their population becomes larger yours may end up increasing regardless of nematode use.

So what on earth do we do I hear you screaming. Well there are lots of options so don't despair. 

 

Dawn and dusk slug patrols are really necessary. I pick them off and put them into a bucket of salty water which despatches them. It's possible to pick a good many off both plants and paths at these times, and it definitely helps against the onslaught. I also go out straight after rainfall and pick them off. It's said that leaving a dead slug on a path will scare others away, but I'm definitely yet to be convinced of that!

But, that said, there are some really simple things that will save your seedlings without any outside help.  Pot them up from modules into 3" pots and grow them on. Once they fill these pots they'll be large enough to cope with most small infestations as long as you carry on with the dawn/dusk raids. Obviously this isn't useful for your beautiful herbaceous displays in the border as they appear in spring, but it's how to keep your new plants safe.

In the border there are ways of keeping them off. Egg shells, bran and coffee all work as long as you keep reapplying. There is product made of old bathroom suites crushed up that works an absolute treat sand rarely needs replacing, but equally broken and crushed bricks will work too.

But most importantly your garden needs its own biodiverse system. The smallest pond, some bird feeders, even if it's just a window feeder, a wildlife area that's a bit lost and untidy where beasts can hide, and feel safe. A hole in your neighbours fences for hedgehogs to wander through. Bug hotels, piles of rotting wood and even the dead heads of some plants are all important to encourage nature into your garden. And most importantly an understanding that if we over control, we actually kill off. That gardens need to support nature, rather than control it. 

A wise man, part owner of Common Farm Flowers, Fabrizzio Bocchia, was once heard to say 'look after the invertebrates, and you'll bring in everyone you need,' or something similar! So plant for insects, for pollinators and everything else, with perhaps a bit of persuasion, will come. 

It can be done but it's important to remember that you won't always win. And that doesn't matter because in the long term we will win if we stop controlling and start allowing. 

Now why this now? Well it's the perfect time to get organised!! Put up feeders, bird boxes, bug hotels now and by spring the birds will be in them. Make a wood pile now and you'll soon find frogs and toads nestling in with the autumn leaves ready to hibernate. You could even get a hedgehog box-I've never had one that was empty for long!! Start to plan your biodiverse garden over winter and by spring you'll see the difference. This is particularly important in cities of course. Recently we added a garden to a sunken roundabout in Bristol city centre and just planting lavender bought the bees rushing in to a space that had no wildlife in it at all. There's truth in the phrase, 'make it and they will come'!

And if you get to the point of feeling you must use pellets, please make sure they're organic the organic variety. 

Some people will of course ask why we should do this and what's so important about it really.

Well I'd like to think my grandchildren will be able to meet a toad or a hedgehog, and not rely on Mrs Tiggywinkle or Toad ofToad Hall to describe them to them. Don't you?!? 

 

http://www.hedgehogstreet.org/pages/slug-pellets.html

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2013/jul/10/slug-pesticides-metaldehyde-drinking-water

http://www.pan-uk.org/pestnews/Actives/Metaldeh.htm

Wordless Wednesday

 

A trip to Arvensis Perennials

On Friday afternoon, on the last day in September which was warm and sunny, I finally made the trip into Wiltshire to see Arvensis Perennials who's site is just outside Bradford Upon Avon. Having had 3 very early starts and very long days, I was shattered an a bit of retail plant therapy at a lovely indie nursery was just what I needed. Having had a conversation with Arvensis via Instagram about the Eryngium yuccifolium I had seen at Hauser and Wirth, the Piet Oudolf garden which I visited recently and I will blog about soon, I really set off to buy one of these, but came home with a whole load more!!

 

The nursery is set up for wholesale really and the time will come I'm sure when it's only open to the public on specific days, but they'd told me to just rock up which I did. You have to love a nursery where you're shaken by the hand by both owners and sent off to make a list, so I did exactly what I was told!

The first thing that struck me was how clean and tidy the place was. There wasn't a weed to be seen, where the mypex on the beds was empty it was swept and clean, and the health of the plants was extraordinary. There are several large polytunnels set out into grasses, shade lovers, Mediterranean etc and then an outdoor space full of those plants that really do grow best outside with no fuss. And even outside not awed could be seen.

 

Now some of you will know that in my nursery days herbaceous perennials were where my heart truly lay, and to some extent still does. I marvel at the seasonal cycle of these plants and the way they change a garden through the year. I'd love to experiment more with them and I have a little personal project in the go that will allow this to start to happen, but more of that another time dear reader.

 

So what did you buy I hear you say.

Well I could have bought the lot!! I didn't buy any grasses because I simply couldn't make my mind up which to choose, but I did leave with a fine haul which included the Eryngium, Geranium phaeum Samobor, Helianthus, Lemon Queen, Ageratina altissima Chocolate, Kirengashoma palmata, Salvia sclarea Vatican White, Agastache Black Adder, Anthriscus sylvestris Ravenswing, a beautiful white Scabious, my favourite thistle in Cirsium Atropurpureum, a white Hesperis and a couple of ferns!!

 

So if you're looking at rejiggjng an area, look them up and take a look at their plant list because I can almost guarantee if you're looking for herbaceous perennials, Arvensis won't let you down.