Sausages and onions in mustard sauce

This is a dish made from a Nigel Slater recipe, which I recently saw on Nigel's Simple Suppers. It is made with slow-cooked onions, sausages and a creamy mustard sauce. Really easy to make, but really nice to eat.

I cooked some sliced onions very slowly, until soft but not browned. Well no, actually, I cooked some onions a little bit too quickly, until they were brown, and then I realised that they were overdone and cooked another lot. I kept the first lot to one side and added them back at the last minute!

The sausages were really good plain pork ones from our local butcher. I cut them each into three pieces to make little "sausage nuggets", and cooked them on quite a high heat so that they went very brown on the outside while remaining soft on the inside.

Towards the end of the cooking time I added to the pan half a tub of Elmlea (you could use real cream of course) and large teaspoonfuls of both smooth and whole-grain mustard, and a generous sprinkle of chopped parsley.

I served the dish with a medley of vegetables from my garden - carrots, turnips, Broad Beans and French beans - and some "Ratte" new potatoes, simply plain boiled. They were really tasty!

I like Nigel Slater's style of cooking. It is simple, in a no-nonsense way, and emphasises the use of good ingredients.

Harvest Monday - 22 July 2013

The harvests are coming in thick and fast now - lots of variety. I have harvested lots more potatoes, including the first of the "Ratte" ones. They are very small but very choice. I have several pots of these, so the later ones will no doubt be bigger.

Potatoes "Ratte"

I have continued to harvest more turnips, which are still perfect specimens, with no bug damage at all, which I find amazing in view of my previous attempts with this vegetable.

Turnips "Golden Ball" and "Purple Top Milan"

I have harvested three cucumbers. One was a very nice one, and came from the strongest plant in the batch - the only one of the original six to have performed well.

The other two were not ones to be proud of. They were a very strange shape. They came from one of the plants that so nearly died:

As some of you may remember, I re-sowed my Cucumbers and I am now back up to six plants, but four of them are still very small and not producing fruits yet. I live in hope though...

On Saturday I picked this vegetable medley:

Broad Beans, Carrots, French Beans and Broccoli

The Broad Beans have been very poor this year. There haven't been all that many pods, and some of those have had only one or two beans inside. Still, I'm pleased to have been able to pick the first of my "Cobra" climbing French Beans. This is my favourite variety, and this year I have twelve plants, so I should get a decent harvest.

The second half of the Shallots have been lifted now. Not as many as in the first lot, but still enough to be worthwhile growing them.

Shallots "Longor"

These smaller ones will probably be pickled, but we will be reserving the bigger ones for general culinary use.

Shallots "Longor"

Jane used some of the shallots from the first batch (harvested 2 weeks ago) a couple of days ago in a Navarin of Lamb, along with some of the "Golden Ball" turnips. The carrots in this picture are bought ones I'm afraid.

Those really fresh shallots were SO tasty! Much more strongly-flavoured than ones that have been stored for a long time.

Finally for this week, I picked the first of my Blueberries, and a few more Scotch Bonnet chillis. Don't worry, we didn't eat them together!

Blueberries "Earliblue" and chillis "Scotch Bonnet"

These two are a good example of what I have often written about fruit / veg harvests. Sometimes one thing does well and sometimes another. The Scotch Bonnets have been great and very prolific, but this year the Blueberries are very sparse. Next year it may well be the other way round.

I wasn't going to mention Lettuce because I have been harvesting it for weeks, but I think I really do need to show off this fine (and enormous) specimen:

I'm entering this post for "Harvest Monday", hosted as ever by Daphne on her blog Daphne's Dandelions. If your are not familiar with this hugely popular weekly "hook-up" why not have a look? There should be lots of lovely harvests on display at this time of year!

Runner Beans

I always grow lots of beans if I can, because I love eating them.

I have Broad Beans, Runner Beans, French Beans, Italian Beans (Fagioli Rampicante) etc, etc. I also have some fairly unusual beans sent to me by a reader of my blog (You know who I am referring to, Jude), such as the "Veitch's" ones I am trying for the first time. These are my Runners:-

As well as being good to eat, Beans are also very decorative, so I offer you here a selection of photos that demonstrate this and illustrate the transition from flower to bean.

The flowers are produced in big clusters on long stems like this:

The flowers are evidently very attractive to bees, who on their visits in search of nectar pollinate them.

Unless the flowers are pollinated, when the petals fade that is the end - as for those at the base of the
cluster in the next photo, where you can see bare stems.

But if the bees have done their thing though, a little bean will emerge from the fading bloom:

These beans grow very rapidly as long as sufficient water is available.

Within a couple of weeks they will be big enough to eat. I hope to be able to show you this soon!

Unfortunately it is not only the bees that find Runner Bean flowers attractive, so I have already had to spray them:

Blackfly infestation on Runner Bean flowers

Tomato progress report

My tomatoes are a long way from ready, but they are looking good at this stage of the game. One or two of the plants are well advanced, such as this "Cherokee Purple":

This plant will produce a small number of large fruits, but at the other end of the scale is this "Sungella" one, which has hundreds of flowers. Will it produce hundreds of fruits, do you think?

Do you know, I half suspect that this plant is not "Sungella" at all. I grew some with that name a couple of years ago and they were very different. A bigger plant, and a lot fewer fruits, each a lot larger than these are going to be. Very strange.

This is "Orkado", a hefty plant that is going to produce some big fruits - smoother than the "Cherokee Purple", and bright red. I had some of these last year, and they were very good. This variety is probably going to take over from "Ferline" as my staple tomato.

Have a look at the bottom left-hand corner of the pot in which it is growing. Do you see the small plant? I tried an experiment. I had heard that if you plant the sideshoots that you pinch out they will send out roots and grow into new plants. It's true. Not that I need any more right now, but it's a tip worth remembering for the future...



This is another of my favourites - a bush variety called "Maskotka". It produces masses of red fruits about the size of a small Apricot - certainly bigger than a Cherry. Very popular with the kids! (And the Grand-kids...)

I have three plants of this variety, growing in my Woodblocx raised bed. They are obviously enoying their home, because they are really huge - much bigger than normal:

This is "Sungold", which has big trusses of gold-coloured cherry-sized fruit. It is reputed to be the most flavoursome tomato EVER. I'm not sure I agree on that, but it's certainly good.



This is the well-known "San Marzano", supposedly the best for making tomato sauces and passata.

Actually, that is two plants, growing together in the same large container. It is not what I would consider to be an ideal site, being under the shade of a tree, but in our present very hot weather, it's perhaps the best place of all right now!

Growing (good) tomatoes is not easy. There are lots of pitfalls along the way, and they do require more care than many other vegetables. Right now the biggest challenge is to keep them hydrated. We are experiencing very hot temperatures for this part of the world (30C plus) and the plants need watering at least daily, sometimes twice daily. The big plants use a lot of water, and I'm very glad to have some self-watering pots for them. As finances allow, I think I will gradually re-equip so that I have enough for all my tomato plants. Of course, the biggest challenge is the fungal disease Blight, but I'm trying not to think of that just now. With a bit of luck the hot dry weather will not permit the disease to thrive!

Brassica seedlings

It's the time of year for Brassica seedlings. At about this time every year I pot-up a load of seedlings for my

Winter Brassicas - Purple Sprouting Broccoli and Cavolo Nero, and occasionally some Cabbage.

This year I have 3 different types of Purple Sprouting Broccoli: "Red Arrow", "Red Spear" and "Early Purple". I have two types of Cavolo Nero, one of which is just called that, and the other is "Black Magic". I also have some miniature Broccoli "Matsuri". The latter is not a Winter type, so I'm hoping it will mature before any cold weather arrives. (Though cold weather just now seems a VERY distant prospect!)



I sowed the seeds for all these on 22nd June, and this past weekend I judged them to be big enough to go into individual containers. Those tall Elmlea pots are good for this purpose because they are nice and deep.

These seedlings will grow rapidly now that they don't have to compete with their siblings, so I expect to have to pot them on again in a few weeks' time before planting them in their final growing positions.

Since these Brassicas are not particularly exciting I'm going to include in my post some photos of plants that are slightly more photogenic...

Broad-leaved Thyme

Greek Oregano. (Spot the ant.)



Hardy Geranium





Colours of Summer

Earlier this year I bought a few plants that I thought would brighten-up my garden during the Summer. One of these is in full flower right now. It is Gaillardia "Arizona Sun". Since Arizona seems to be one of the hottest places on earth, I think this cultivar is aptly named! See what you think of this...

Isn't that fabulous? A great addition to my garden - and only £3.49 too.

I have another Gaillardia too, called "Burgunder", which has deep red (Burgundy?) coloured flowers. It is a bit later than the "Arizona Sun" and it has buds but no open flowers just yet.

Chilli progress

The hot sunny conditions we have been enjoying recently have done the chilli plants a lot of good, and many of them have set fruit now, so I thought I had better show you how they are coming on.

This is a variety called "Cyclon"



It looks as if it will not have many fruits, but they will be big ones.

This one is "Sumher":



The fruits of this one are longer and slimmer. When they are ripe they will be red, as will those of "Cyclon".

This one has been grown from seeds I brought back from Turkey last year. I though it was a chilli, but evidently it is a Sweet Pepper / Capsicum / Bell Pepper type. Whatever it is, it's a prolific fruiter!

My chillis are in 10" / 25cm pots, most of them ranged alongside one of the beds in a position that gets maximum sunshine. In the very hot conditions we have been experiencing I am very aware of the need to avoid letting them get stressed, so I have the pots standing in deep saucers which I keep topping-up with water. I also feed the plants with "Tomorite" tomato food once a week.

I have re-potted the Scotch Bonnet plant and moved it outside. It's about the size of a small tree now, despite having been pruned several times!

It is absolutely covered with fruit too:

This is "Black Prince". It has gone quite tall and thin, so much so that I have felt the need to stake it because I think it is vulnerable to wind damage. As you can see, the young leaves are green, but as they get more mature they darken to almost black. Apparently the fruits will also be black / dark purple. The plant has had several flowers, but no fruits have set just yet.



This little fella is "Numex Twilight". It is by far the smallest of my chilli plants. Its fruits will be in lots of different colours.



This is "Numex Suave Orange". This plant has a very thick stem for a chilli, and big wrinkly leaves. The fruits, when they come, will be orange of course!



I think some of the wrinkliness of the leaves may be blistering caused by aphids. I did find a few aphids on the plant, so I have sprayed it with bug-killer to eliminte them before they become too much of a pest.

What is it about growing chillis that is so addictive? We don't eat lots of chillis, but I love growing them, just as I love having lots of different types of tomato. It's a challenge that Ienjoy.