Bleu de Solaise

by Karen B

Pulling the leeks in today’s gale I am soaked in minutes as water streams down my face and soaks my trousers with winter-cold rain. At first it feels as if I am being assaulted, then I get used to it and give myself up to the power of the storm. Out here, high on the granite plateau of Dartmoor, where the extreme climate is different from the rest of Devon the weather is always in control. And it can be very destructive.

Once I am totally wet, I start to really enjoy the ride. I pull some leeks, ‘Bleu de Solaise’- an old French variety with blue grey leaves which turn even darker after a frost. And I thank my lucky stars that I chose to grow this hardy type; these Leeks are perfectly happy to over winter in the ground, even in atrocious weather, which is good, because bad, wet atrocious weather is exactly what we are getting this winter!

Although mild flavoured, these leeks only need a little cream, a sprinkling of grated nutmeg and a golden pastry topping, to become a perfect supper dish. I served mine with a herb salad and all thoughts of the cold wet day….simply melted away.

 For the recipe for ‘La Flamiche aux Poireaux’ click here

Creative Destruction in the Kitchen Garden…

by Karen B

Dark, wet, stormy days have cut my connection with outdoors. One dry day and a rummage through my seed box sees me overdosed on creativity and a renewed life force which I thought was dead and gone for good. Gardening can do that; it can put you back in touch with who you really are.

One of the problems of discovering again who I really am is that I have to face the fact that I am a hoarder. I use my Kitchen Garden as a living larder; somewhere to store and stock-pile fresh carrots, beetroot, brussel sprouts, parsnips and leeks during the winter. Outside in the Kitchen Garden there are still beds full of vegetables. Indoors, rows and rows of gorgeous Golden Hubbard squash line up waiting to be cooked. It is nearly time to start planting again…and my living larder is still full, despite the fact that I pulled up 20 lbs of carrots on Boxing Day!

So, its time to pull and preserve or cook and eat the remaining produce in the living larder and to remind myself that the demise of the old makes way for the new. It is both the law of nature and of creative destruction and as Pablo Picasso said’ Every act of creation is first an act of destruction’.

Why not take a look at my Living Larder? It’s muddy and wet, but it’s bursting with colour, life and produce! See how with a few packets of seeds you too could be providing fresh vegetables for your family all through the winter. As for me, well, I could just about feed an army.

Click on the picture to walk inside……I hope you are wearing your Wellies!

Witch Hazel or How to mend a broken heart.

by Karen B

Strong winds and persistent rain blast across the kitchen garden. I have my head down against its force and all I can see is wet, heavy, sodden soil in every bed. It takes all my strength to open a little gate against this angry, howling south- westerly, but once through I look up and my heart leaps with joy at the sight of the Witch Hazel in full bloom!

Flowering before even the snowdrops’ petals unfurl, this amazing shrub with its magical properties (carry a sprig with you to help mend a broken heart or use it to make a spell to remove difficult obstacles from your life), its spidery flowers and its spicy fragrance always takes me by surprise. It brings with it the hope of better weather, of sunshine and the welcome return of happy gardening days.

‘Let it Snow’…..

by Karen B

One shake of a snow globe is all it takes to sweep me up, sprinkled with tiny snowflakes to the miniature world of perpetual Christmas. Two shakes and I am stepping into the snow white perfection of forever winter in the magical world of Narnia. I can even feel the silky soft fur against my skin as I push through the coats in that iconic wardrobe.

Whether it’s decorating the house or cooking for Christmas I want it to feel as if I too have stepped into a snowy, forest wonderland. When there is no snow outside then soft drifts of icing sugar on Stollen or Swedish ‘Spritzbaaken’biscuits work very well for me. And when mince pies are two a penny, I want to bake with yeast and fill the house with fragrant, spiced breads and cakes which transport me to Nordic countries with snow, snow, snow.

Baking Christmas bread and then sharing it with friends is a festive tradition in my house and this Julekake is totally divine. The recipe makes two big loaves which you can slice and have with coffee, you can spread butter on it and have it as bread, you can toast it and if there is any left, you can make the best bread and butter pudding you will ever have tasted!

For the recipe for Julekake click here

For the recipe for Julekake Bread and Butter Pudding click here

‘The Mammy of Irish Cooking’….

by Karen B

I love old cookery books. Especially those written in the late 1930’s to the 1950’s. These fragile, fusty books evoke a time where vegetable seed sowing charts cosied up beside tips for ‘How to use up the meat on a ham bone when it gets dry and uninteresting’.

I might look like a high maintenance kind of girl, but its austerity that kick starts my creativity and cooking on a budget using ideas from the past, when everyone practised household economies and grew their own food seems really apposite today.

Maura Laverty, who has been described as ‘The Mammy of Irish Cooking’ wrote a book called ‘Kind Cooking’ in 1955. And whilst many women of that generation were applying their lipstick and putting on a clean apron before the man of the house came home for supper, Maura was helping those women with recipes for quick suppers.

I was intrigued. Would Maura’s recipes help me now? A woman with a passion for lipstick, glamour and gardening? Well, three cheers for Maura! This recipe is still fabulous and economical after 58 years!

A bottle of Prosecco adds some glitz to the pie and will turn it into a great Friday night supper.

For the recipe for Maura Laverty’s Sausage Pie, click here. 

Sweet Pickles….

by Karen B

My best friend Janet and I walked together for miles as children; we walked to buy fireworks and sparklers in November and in the Summer we would make the long walk over the allotments to creep up and listen to the homing pigeons coo-cooing in their lofts.

Janet’s Dad was the Winder at the Pit and he operated the giant winding wheel lowering and raising the colliers, equipment and coal up and down to the pit in the cage. Every step to visit him in the winding house was over heavily creosoted railway sleepers, picking yellow Coltsfoot flowers and swopping secrets as we went.

But the walk we loved most of all, was the walk to the Fish and Chip shop 4 miles away. Arriving cold and hungry on a dark Winters nights, we would gaze, mesmerized by the golden glow of the battered fish and sausages in the hot cupboard, as though we had found the Holy Grail. Then, clutching vinegar scented, warm newspaper packages we would laugh all the way home about the jar of surreal, glassy, white pickled eggs on the counter. We both said we would never, ever eat one of those!

And I was right; we didn’t, until I started making Beetroot Pickled Eggs. Here all the sharpness of vinegar is softened by the sweet, earthy taste of beetroot and the mellow richness of free range eggs. With their show-stopping colour and flavour there is ALWAYS a of jar of these gem like pickles in my fridge.

I  think everyone knows about this recipe until I serve these rather extrovert, party loving eggs with Italian hams, salamis, celeriac remoulade and crusty rolls and everyone wants the recipe. Beetroot is in season and inexpensive now, so if you don’t have any in the garden, why not buy a bunch and give this recipe a try?

For the recipe for Beetroot Pickled Eggs click here

Sweet Rewards for sweetbabyveg….

by Karen B

My sweetbabyveg blog is just 27 days old and it has been nominated for a Liebster Award! I would like to thank The Belmont Rooster for nominating me for this FABULOUS award which was created to recognise the achievements of the newest bloggers on the block. I have got my tiara down from the attic and am waiting for Versace to contact me about a dress and Harry Winston about my diamonds for my virtual red carpet award ceremony! Seriously, in the past I have earned my fair share of awards and razzmatazz. But NOTHING has made me as happy as this award for a blog that was created out of my love of growing and cooking the garden.

For more details on my nomination, click here.

Grab those shades……

by Karen B

It’s July 2013; a hot day. So hot that the tarmac is sticky on the road. And I am instantly transported back to childhood; to my walk to school, picking wild flowers and pushing my face into hedgerows to look for nests so that I might glimpse a bird’s egg. Back in the  present, I see that my neighbour’s field gate is half open. Still embodying the 5 year old me and with all the inhibitions of adulthood abandoned, I  push open the gate, much wider than is polite and look in to see what I can see.

What I discovered this Summer, was that my little known neighbour had tilled the soil next to a small barn on his land and there, protected by two thick Devon hedges, he had made a vegetable patch and it was FABULOUS! Up he trundles with his wheelbarrow full of horse manure and within minutes we are chatting as my enthusiasm for his crops, for his success and achievements bubbles over into joy. We have connected and before long his squeaky wheelbarrow is pushed over to my patch with several loads of that coveted dung.

Perhaps it’s time for you to push open the gate into my garden, would you like to take a look? You may need to grab some shades, because these photos are fizzing with all the colour of Summer.

sweetbabyveg Cauliflower…….

by Karen B

I checked out my brassica cage today and look what I found! The colours of the curds of these baby ‘Graffiti’, ‘Trevi’, and ‘Snowball’ Cauliflower are eye-popping and bright. Finding them made me so happy and I really hope that they make you smile too.