Harvesting Rhubarb

The rhubarb is ready for harvesting!

Rhubarb is one of the most reliable plants I've grown over the years. Its an early-cropper, while many other plants are just coming into growth at this time.

I've always grown rhubarb in a slightly shady area of the garden. I generally mulch it once a year and leave it to its own devices. Two of my four plants are growing at different paces - this is luck and perfect for staggering the harvests a bit. I've no idea what variety I have as the plants were given to me by two different people.

What to do with the rhubarb? I saw a recipe in Tesco (grocery store) magazine about a month back, stuck it on the fridge so I wouldn't misplace it, and waited for my rhubarb to grow big enough to harvest.  This weekend I made 'Soured Cream and Rhubarb Tea Cake' - yummy! Above is a picture of the cake on the recipe page - always a bonus when what I make resembles the picutre!  It tastes delicious. Each serving has 23 grams of fat and 477 calories - no wonder it tastes so good! 

Tesco recipes can be found at: https://realfood.tesco.com/

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter weekend!

(photo taken at Belfast Botanic Gardens)

The smell of hyacinths is amazing!

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

Happy Holidays

The gardening can wait.... there's baking to do!

I've been baking cookies for weeks and giving them to friends and family.

 

 

Needless to say I've been eating too many, and have already put on a few extra pounds! My New Year resolution will include eating healthier, lots of outdoor walks, and of course lots of gardening!

 

 

 

 

Whether you're baking or being healthy,

 

hope you have a wonderful Christmas and holiday period!

 

 

 

Some of the baking supplies!

Sugar cookies (Betty Crocker recipe) with icing made from icing/confectioner's sugar with a drop of vanilla essence and tiny bit of water and coloured with food colouring.

These are yummy! Sugar cookies decorated with melted chocolate, mini pretzel antlers and gummy noses.

The healthier option (?) - pretzels covered in dark chocolate and crushed candy cane, or pretzels covered in white chocolate and a walnut.

 

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

Courgette Zucchini Cake

When I returned from holiday (vacation) I was greeted in the garden by a 450 gram courgette (zucchini), a small marrow. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it until a came across a recipe for Chocolate Courgette Cake (pictured). 

This is an extremely tasty recipe that's moist and delicious. 

I made three slight alterations to the recipe: (1) I baked two round cakes rather than using a large brownie type pan, (2) I put raspberry jam in between the two layers, and, (3) I made Betty Crocker butter cream chocolate frosting for the top and middle of the cake. Absolutely gorgeous! For a  link to the recipe click here. 

This year I grew a prolific, unusual Italian heirloom variety of Courgette called Coucourzelle. It has lovely stripes and the seed pack describes it as producing "heavy crops of slim, straight fruits with excellent flavour and an excellent source of vitamin C." This is the variety I used in the cake. Gold star!

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

Happy Christmas!

Hoping your Christmas Day is filled with cherished memories and tasty delights!

Pictured above: Pecan pie and old fashioned apple stack cake made by Egretta Wells.

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

To make or not to bake

Even though I usually burn (or over bake) the first batch of cookies I do love holiday baking! Every year I make sugar cookies from a Betty Crocker recipe book, cut them out into festive shapes and decorate with icing made from icing / confectioners sugar, a tiny drop of water and a little food colouring. Fun and yummy! They keep for weeks and are delicious with a cup of tea! They taste much better than store bought versions!

Hoping your holiday cooking and/or baking goes smoothly!

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

Potato cakes - yum

Back in September I harvested a good quantity of potatoes. I was careful to store some for using in December for roasties. Having some left at Christmas, I stored them in a dark place  and hoped they'd be usable in January after my holiday travels.

Left: the last of my potatoes - in a bad state! 

Would you eat rooted potatoes? 

They were quite firm, but rooting. I decided to 'waste not' and use them. So I made mashed potatoes; then added egg, onion, salt/pepper, spices and cooked salmon and made a dozen salmon cakes (pictured below). Lightly fried, they tasted great!

Variety: I grew Pentland Javelin and Maris Peer potatoes, putting them in the ground around St Patrick's Day, and digging the bulk of them up in September.

Food photography isn't my forte but they tasted good and are relatively healthy! 

Bon Appétit!

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

Rainy Day Comfort Food

It's pouring rain today! For me, rainy days mean eating soups and stews, or sugary treats (or both). I have such a sweet tooth so I took Mark's suggestion (at Mark's Veg Plot) and tried out the recipe for pesto soda scones but I did the sweet version with raisins/mixed fruit and sugar. They turned out quite tasty.   

The dough rolled out and ready, I dabbed on some butter, added some mixed dried fruit, and sprinkled with white and brown sugar before rolling up and cutting into a 'cinammon roll' type shape for baking.

Prior to baking, I realised I had forgotten the most important ingredient - cinnamon. So I had to sprinkle it on top before baking (oh well).

For the recipe and the savoury version, go to: http://marksvegplot.blogspot.com/2012/01/pesto-soda-scones.html

Veg Villains (courgette, bean, sunflower, radish)

Not long ago (18th May) I was posting my first courgette flower. I hardened off the courgette plants and planted one in a large pot out the back door near the kitchen (so I could keep an eye on it).

To my horror, something nibbled my first courgette! At first I thought something big like a bird, but you can see in the photo the guilty well fed slug.

Not just one slug but a whole family of slugs were having a feast on my first courgette (photo below).

Above: Something is eating its way through my potatoes too - maybe slugs?

 

Ants seem to be nibbling on my sunflowers! I didn't know ants eat sunflowers?

I seem to have a record number of ants this year!

Left: the remains of one of my Purple Queen Dwarf Bean plants. It wilted the day after I planted it into the ground. 

I lifted the plant to have a look and the whole thing came away. At first I thought it may have something to do with a large chive plant I dug up & moved; I put the bean in its place. But the roots have been devoured so maybe something was eating on it? Or it could have gotten damaged by the recent gales as I was hardening it off outside... ?

Suppose the good news... even if some little critter (probably a slug) took the first bite out of my radish (bite pictured in the photo), I did pull up a few radishes to eat. This time they are lovely, not like the radishes I posted about on 29th April that had been growing over winter (big mistake; what a learning curve).

What to do with  my radishes...

I had chunky Irish stew planned for dinner so I put some home grown rocket on top with sliced radishes. Maybe a strange combination, but quite yummy. 

I've had lots of problems with blogger this week and I haven't been able to comment on many blogs. Very frustrating!

If it rains eat cake (not cows)

The past two weeks were filled with gales and rain.

New neighbours arrived at the weekend. Eleven young beef cows. They're curious and watched me potter about in the garden in between rain showers.

The don't look very friendly - yet.

Above:  The courgette was hardened off last week and this one was planted into a pot outside at the weekend. Variety: Courgette (zucchini F1), Carters Tested Seeds, 20 seeds, 79p. Sown: 3 April 2011.

Above: The Purple Queen Dwarf Bean are in flower. Two have been planted outside. The others will be hardened off this week. Variety: Bean 'Dwarf Purple Queen', Mr Fothergills, 100 seeds £2.35. Sown: 3 April 2011.

All my digging and planting exhausted the poor cat.

"If it rains eat cake." So that's what I did in between rain showers. Unfortunately the strawberries weren't homegrown as my strawberries have a long way to go. There's a layer of lemon curd in the middle with the cream. Ever notice how store bought strawberries have very little flavour!?

Happy St Patrick's day

Happy St Patrick's Day! It's a beautiful day today in N. Ireland.

To celebrate St Paddy's I'm showcasing some Irish cottages and gardens... (click on photos to enlarge)

Above: Irish bog pony photo taken in County Kerry.

Cottage photos taken in County Kerry.

Herbaceous flower border photos taken in County Antrim.

Lastly, what would St Paddy's be without some traditional Irish bread so I made traditional wheaten bread this morning ...

The flour mix contains white flour and a course wheaten flour (picutred).

 Later today the Irish stew will be cooking.

Have a great day!

Happy Christmas goodies

What to do when the ground is frozen and its the holidays...

Here's what I've been up to...

Making gingerbread houses is loads of fun especially with kids! The icing is confectioner's sugar (icing sugar) mixed with a little water & it makes a great edible 'glue'.

These were pre-bought kits that get assembled - an entire village of five little buildings. So much fun!

This is one of the little houses that came in the gingerbread house kit.

Also on the agenda this week, by popular demand (my brother loves these) - peppermint bark. Just melt white chocolate, drop it onto wax paper in cookie shapes and top with crushed candy canes. Let harden and enjoy. Quite nice!

One of my favourite treats - pretzel sticks dipped in white chocolate and topped with festive sprinkles. Again, so easy to make. Pretzels don't seem to be very popular in the UK but Americans seem to love pretzels, I know I do - and even better dipped in chocolate!

Another holiday favourite - making sugar cookies. This is a Bettery Crocker recipe. It's so fun to cut the dough into different festive shapes. The kids love helping.

Sugar cookies baked and ready to decorate.

This is where the fun really begins. Icing sugar is so yummy and a tiny drop of food colouring makes the colours. Sprinkles of choice!

They taste yummy and Santa seems to enjoy them!

Did you know.. In the UK we eat on average of 9,000 calories on Christmas day! Might as well enjoy the cookies too!

Happy Holidays, Happy New Year!

& Happy Blogging!