Friday 27 August 2010

Tomato tart


Hopefully you're all wallowing in delicious home-grown tomatoes and are in need of a quick and easy recipe to put them centre stage. Or if, like me, that hasn't exactly gone to plan then I would recommend buying some ripe tomaotoes just so you can enjoy one of the tastiest tomato dishes I ever tried.

I followed the recipe to the tee using pre-rolled puff pastry to save time and effort. Do make sure you use good quality goats cheese to complement your lovely tomatoes and don't worry if you don't have a food processor, mushing the paste ingredients together worked for me.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/14/tomato-galette-recipe-vegetarian-ottolenghi

Sunday 8 August 2010

The beginning and the end


Today I picked my first tomato, it was a 'Latah' which is an early ripening variety from Real Seeds, warmed from the sun it was delicious. Sadly today was also the end of my tomato bed because all the plants are showing the dreaded signs of blight, I had hoped that evening waterings and the blistering hot heat would delay the inevitable but sadly not. The are plenty of also ripe and unripe fruits which will be turned into sauces and chutneys; the bed will be used for some over-wintering kale and next year I will be growing blight resistant varieties.

The hot and wet weather should hopefully provide perfect seed germination conditions so I have sown Pak Choi, Mizuna, Fennel, Swede, Endive and Mispoona to hopefully provide crops in the coming months and over winter.

The new potatoes are continuing to delight, 'Charlotte' has proved to be an excellent masher so we are enjoying plenty of potatoes in all forms. The courgettes have started to go mad, I returned home today with 1 marrow, 1 very borderline marrow and a baby courgette as well as 6 cucumbers and another pot of raspberries. Now I'm off to dig out my stash of courgette recipes to turn these beauties into something truly delicious.

Enjoy your plots.