Weekend catch up - card making and a quick supper

I went to write a couple of birthday cards on Saturday and discovered that my stocks are severely depleted.

Card making was the first craft thing that I got into, and still enjoy, but you only need so many at a time.  But with only a couple of all occasion cards and a couple of birthday cards left it was time to get gluestick to the card and make some more.

I usually get caught in a theme and make a batch of about 5 or 6 cards at a go from the theme and currently I am well and truly hooked on Matroyshka dolls.

I had a quick look around the web for a suitable template but did not find anything that would suit my card sizes (15 x 10cm and 17 x 14 cm) so decided to make my own.  Out comes the trusty squared paper (I may have mentioned before that squared paper is one of my little pleasures in life), got the school geometry set out and made my own template.

I know I am not showing you the finished products but you may be receiving one so I don't want to spoil the surprise.

The main body is made from magazine pages, scrounged wrapping papers, hand decorated tissue papers and wall paper, then the head scarf is cut out as a separate piece, the face is some fleshy pink paper with the hair line and face hand drawn on.

I am going to see if I can get this as a pdf file for people to download and use from here.

Anyway, today's (Sunday's) car booting was not a great haul, but the drinkies and lunch with friends this afternoon was a great success, leaving me with little time for a project - so here is a great tasty quick and easy supper.


Baked Salmon and Garden Fresh Peas.



1 x salmon steak per peson
1 x cup fresh garden peas per person
1 teaspoon of butter per salmon steak
Freshly ground black pepper and sea salt to season
1 lemon cut into thin slices

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Take a shallow oven dish and put the peas in the bottom
Place a knob of butter on the peas, and balance the steak on top
Cover with a couple of slices of lemon
Season, then bake covered in the oven for 30 minutes.
Purists may say that is too long for salmon but I like mine cooked through, bake yours for less time if you prefer but the lemon and butter will stop it from drying out, and covering will keep the peas steam cooking without them becoming mushy.
If you like your peas mushy, boil them for a couple of minutes before baking or use frozen peas as these will be softer than fresh garden peas regardless of cooking times.

Garden Pea Risotto recipe

I'm on a roll now.  With things finally ready to eat from the garden, I am continuing my domestic goddess impersonation with another fresh from the garden recipe today.

Garden Pea Risotto

2 tablespoons olive oil
risotto rice (1 cupped handful per person)
1 crushed garlic clove
1 finely chopped onion
fresh peas (or frozen) - same volume of peas as rice
1 small glass / 150 ml white wine
2 litres of veg or chicken stock - you may require less depending on how many people / how much rice you are using


For the best flavour, if you can; start the risotto cooking then nip out to pick your peas for the ulitmate in fresh food, if not, pick peas then leave in a bowl in the freezer, start the risotto then use the peas when required by the recipe, but don't leave them in there longer than half an hour.

Fry a finely chopped onion and a crushed garlic clove in 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

To the oil add a cupped handful of risotto rice per person.  For risotto you do need risotto rice, otherwise you don't get that creamy texture.  If you use normal rice you get a very good rice side dish though, so it is a win win situation!

Fry the rice gently until it is transparent, then add a small glass of white wine and let boil for a couple of minutes to eradicate the alcohol.

Turn down the heat, and start ladling in the stock, a spoonful at a time; as each spoonful is absorbed add another.  You may not need all the stock depending on how much rice you are using, for 2 people a litre should be enough for the 2 cups of rice, and 1.5 litres for three people, and 2 litres for 4 people and 4 cups of rice.

When the rice has been cooking for about 15 minutes, add the peas, and cook for a further 5 minutes.

The risotto rice should be creamy and soft on the outside but a little firm on the inside, and there should be enough liquid to coat each grain and leave a smear on the plate without the rice swimming in stock and needing a bowl to hold it all together.

At this point you can stir in some butter for extra creaminess, or some grated cheese.  I like mine as is with a couple of sprigs of mint on top.

Thursday was brought to you by the letter 'P'

As part of my drive to make things more manageable in the garden, today I decided not to just section the areas mentally that I was going to concentrate on, but today I decided to concentrate solely on the letter P.

So parsnips, pumpkins and peas.  (I did potatoes the other day so they could stay out of today's list of items.)

Firstly the peas canes were weeded and the peas fastened up to the strings.

Then the parsnips - what there is of them were weeded, they have been resown twice now, and twice, immediately after sowing it has either rained or snowed for weeks, and so from a whole row I now have about 6 viable plants in total.  I have given them a last chance to go for it with the last few seeds from an open packet and if they don't grow, then there will be significantly fewer parsnips in the freezer this year.

Finally the pumpkin row was cleaned up, and I transplanted the random growing pumpkins into their allocated space.  I just hope that they survive the transplant as it is very hot today.  I have given them extra water but again will just have to wait and see.

First Battalion of the Kelvedon Brigade

The advance guard are out in force, standing to attention and ready for inspection.

I always plant my beans and peas initially in toilet roll tubes - it is just one of the many things that I ask my clients and friends to keep in their 'Monika' boxes. Planting them like this protects them from extremes of weather once out in the garden, as well as slugs and other pests, and the toilet tubes degrade naturally in the soil once transplanted leaving lovely healthy deep roots. When planting out, leave a centimetre or so lip of cardboard above the ground this does seem to deter a lot of pests.

My cucumber seedlings are looking lovely and healthy, they are obviously enjoying  being in the greenhouse, they just need another few leaves and out into the garden they will go.

 My  little Calabrese seedlings are coming along quite well too, and I planted another few out today - I plant according to the lunar calendar and today is a leaf planting day according to the biodynamic calendar.

Biodynamic:
Moon in Cancer: This is a Water sign. It is a good time to sow Leaf plants like Basil, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbages, Celeriac, Celery, Dill, Kale, Lettuce, Rhubarb, Seakale, Spinach, Swiss Chard, but it would not be a good time to sow Fruiting plants like Aubergines (Eggplant), Broad Beans (Fava), Cucumbers, French Beans, Marrows and Courgettes, Peas, Peppers, Pumpkins, Runner Beans, Squashes, Sweetcorn, Tomatoes - taken from :  http://www.the-gardeners-calendar.co.uk/Moon_Planting.asp

These are the spinach, sprout and additional calabrese seeds heading out to the cold frames this morning.
I have grown Swiss and Rainbow Chard in previous years but have decided not to this year, after I found two bags full of frozen chard in the freezer - we or rather I, am just not using it enough to warrant growing any more this year.

One of my favourite things in the herb garden is horseradish.  I was very lucky when my father-in-law's partner sent me some a few years ago via the postal service.  I was not sure how it would survive after a week in an envelope but I planted it out and it thrives, coming back year after year, but getting bigger and bigger every year - it just means that I have to make more and more horseradish sauce, one of my favourite relishes and one I have not seen for sale here in France.  In fact if you mention that you eat horseradish (raifort)  they look at you very strangely - they consider it a weed and mostly inedible (or at least they do in this region anyway).

My herb garden is doing well, chives are thriving, I have garlic chives too, and they smell gorgeous, mint and marjoram are taking over a bit,  but rather than pulling them up I am more inclined to expand the herb garden to accomodate them.

Our garden is approximately 12 metres by 38 metres, which is a lot of ground to cover.  By about July I have abandoned weeding completely and only keep the planted rows clear and between rows I have learnt to keep a wide space - big enough for the lawnmower - more cheating I know, but life is short - too short to weed out every tiny bit of sorrel and yarrow and many other miscellaneous and unidentified plants otherwise known as weeds.

So after a lovely morning of planting out a few more of my leafy seeds like celery, after work I headed home for a bit of rotavating.  Luckily Brendan had been up and down the garden for the last cut before the storms forecast tonight and tomorrow, so I put up my guide lines and then went over the rows with the hoe for a clean till ready for planting.

I am actually hoping that the storms arrive because the ground is so dry, in fact I had to get the well pump running this morning for the duck pond which has dried up in the last couple of days.

This weekend is one of my busiest planting and seeding times, but in addition it is also the first big car boot of the season -  whoooo hoooooo - I lurve car booting.