How does you garden grow?

Had a very nice day in the garden today. It was well overdue! The snow peas were suffering from the extremes of weather that we've been experiencing - first the searing, drying westerly winds, then a few days of rain, and their continued battle against the slugs meant that they had really come to the end of their time.

So, I picked the last few peas, and pulled the plants. And it didn't stop there... I picked our spinach, parsley and rocket, and hunted all the grubs off the cabbages. I built up around the leeks again - I'm so looking forward to using our leeks! - and planted out some holy basil and some sweet genovese basil. I put some fertiliser on the sweet peas (I thought they should have been flowering already, but it doesn't seem so!), and planted a beefheart tomato.

We got these great little implements for watering our plants. They're a plastic spike with a few little holes in them. You fill the spike with sand, then using an old soft drink bottle, put that into the mouth end of the spike. It seems to work a treat, and for those of us with busy lifestlyes, you can't really go wrong with anything that will look after itself when it comes to water!

So, we had a glut of spinach and parsley today, so I made a few magic recipes that invented out of my imagination. As usual, quantities are only approximate, because I go by feel...

You can see the big pile of spinach that I used here:


After washing and chopping finely (almost shredding) I did the following:

3 eggs, whites whisked to frothy peaks, yolks beaten with about 1 cup of milk and/or cream, then all folded in together gently.

I also added some garlic that I had simmered and then pounded into a paste. I boiled them so that they would n't be too strong and they seemed to have worked out fine.

I then tossed the damp spinach with:
3/4 cup of type "00" flour, with 1 1/2 tsp baking powder (making a rudimetary Self Raising Flour)

Then I chopped up some boiled spuds (ideally, you can use cold leftovers, but I had to use mine that were still warm) into round slices, and in a lined, well-greased spring-form pan, I formed these into a layer, reminiscent of a tart tartin. I then put my spinach and flour mix on top of this, then poured my combined wet mix over the top. Bunged it into a medium oven for about 30 minutes, et voila, this delicious concoction appeared!
I am a big fan of eating these types of things doused in a rather nice tasting balsamic vinegar.

As you can see, the potatoes achieved a nice golden colour, thanks to the butter I used when greasing my pan.

Also, you might notice that I said to put the potatoes in the pan first - that's how they ended up on top...using a spring-form pan for these types of dishes really make life so much easier...

I also made some dip/spread from the parsley (though there are really buckets of it left so will ahve to think of some more things to do with it before I resort to chopping and freezing!).

250g of fetta, 3 schallots, handful of almonds, parsley to the hearts desire...

Blend everything, without the fetta, until coarsely chopped, then add a thin stream of olive oil for moisture. Then, add the fetta (chopped first is the best approach) until you reach the desired consistency, from a coarse pesto through to a smooth paste.

I think you could also do this with things like garlic, parmesan, pine nuts, maybe a bit of chilli for fun.