The gluts have left the building (shed)
This is where I used to write about the gluts I get from my veg patch and the ensuing gluttony in the kitchen.
Now I write a weekly mostly-veggie recipe over on Substack, plus share tales from the veg patch and exclusive videos. You can subscribe for free by clicking on the link below and every recipe will be sent straight to your inbox. If you’d like more content (such as those videos I mentioned, interviews and printer-friendly PDFs of every recipe to collect) do consider becoming a paid subscriber. More on that here.
In the meantime, here’s an archive of my old Gluts and Gluttony blog:
Blood Orange & Saffron Polenta Cake
Making a seasonal pudding is a tough brief in February. Not much seasonal fruit around and there’s only so many times I can raid the freezer for gluts of gooseberries squirrelled away last summer. But I’m happy to venture further afield, and glad of some imported sunshine …
Ras-el-Hanout Carrot Soup
I don’t know about you, but my freezer can be a bit, how shall I put it, vague. A sort of a magical mystery tour through random leftovers, batch cooking frenzies, and veg patch gluts that I froze for ‘safe keeping’ having been unable to use the abundant harvest when it first arrived…
Rhubarb, ginger & honey flapjack
My craving for forced rhubarb remains unquenchable. Even though we have no kitchen I am still finding ways to use it. Perhaps ‘no’ kitchen is an exaggeration. Whilst our usual kitchen is knocked, we have a temporary one equipped with a microwave that claims to also be a convection oven. I tested that claim for the first time this week with these flapjacks…
Rhubarb, Mackerel & Fennel Salad
I always get a bit silly about forced rhubarb. I think it’s because the season falls when the weather is at its bleakest and the veg patch its muddiest and least productive. In this context, the bubblegum glow of forced rhubarb stems feel like neon lights shining through the gloom, a brief respite from murk…
Parsnip & Ginger Loaf
No matter how often I grow something, I am astounded every time. To see a tiny seed turn into a plant and then into a meal is wondrous. And like a child clapping her hands in glee at a magic trick, I am filled with giddy amazement by each crop. None more so than this year’s parsnip harvest…
Quincemeat Bakewell Tart
I turn this time to Nigella Lawson for quince inspiration (quinspiration? Too much?). Her quincemeat recipe is an annual event in our house offering, as it does, all the usual loveliness of mincemeat but with the addition of fragrant roast quince. Use it to make mince pies of course, but do try this tart too. It is the lovechild of a mince pie and a Bakewell tart, born at Christmastime under a lucky star and the perfect festive dessert.
Spiced Pear & Toffee Jam
There’s nothing like giving someone a jar of homemade jam at Christmas to make you come over all Barbara Good. You feel like you just stepped out of a Country Living feature and the recipient can only enjoy it, can’t they? Well, only if it’s decent jam…
Mulled Apple & Rum Punch
That we are currently in Tier 2 of COVID restrictions and therefore only allowed to meet (six) friends outside was all the excuse I needed to whip up my mulled apple and rum punch. Because if you’re going to stand outside socialising in December, then you darn well better have a warm drink in your hand. And somehow a cuppa doesn’t cut it, does it?
Quince, Radicchio & Ham Salad
A pickled quince is an enigmatic thing. On the one hand soft, sweet and blushing; on the other sharp, assertive, demanding. It has a delicate floral perfume yet brings a stern, acidic kick up the arse to any plate. You can never really pin it down. I make several batches of Nigel Slater’s pickled quince every Christmas to use in salads, with roasts or with cold meats and cheese during that picky leftover eating time between Christmas and New Year.
Stilton & Spinach Stuffed Mushrooms
This is a recipe for those mid-week days when you absolutely positively have to write the Christmas cards tonight or it’ll never get done and are rushed off your feet. As I, and I’m sure you too, are now. So we’ll just crack on shall we? Chop chop…
Miso Kale & Mushrooms
Kale doesn’t so much ‘glut’ as ‘persist’. In a good way. I rarely look out on the kale bed and fret about their being too much to use before it goes over. Because kale doesn’t really go over. It just sits there, through wind, frost, snow and gales, waiting until you are eat it. It’s a very obliging crop, really. Its reward is make an appearance in almost every meal over the winter…
Three Cheese and Chard Tart
The chard harvest is the saviour of November, for more reasons than one. Of course it is delicious: its light, slightly earthy leafiness is a creamier, softer alternative to the fibrous brassica greens which are the only other leaves on offer. But more than that, chard brings garish flashes rainbow silliness to the winter garden. Amidst the fallen leaves and drab, dying remnants of the veg patch it stands out like a clown in council office.
Parsnip Korma
The parsnip harvest continues. As explained last time, I have more than ever so am able to experiment in ways my usual meager harvest hadn’t allowed in previous years. I’m especially keen to try pairing the harvest with Indian flavours, because sweet root vegetables generally make fabulous curries. I think parsnips will be most happy with mild, creamy flavours like the almond-yogurt-spices combination of a korma and so I give it a whirl.
Parsnip gnocchi with Sage & Hazelnuts
The parsnip patch has been uncharacteristically successful this year. Normally, I sow loads of seeds in old toilet rolls and I’m pretty chuffed if a third germinate, but not so this year…
Squash, Roots & Wild Mushrooms with Spelt, Feta and Kale Crisps
This week’s recipe is a last hurrah for the winter squash. They’ve had a pretty good innings. Harvested in October, they have been patiently sat in rows in the shed waiting for their moment of glory on the dinner table. The mice have only recently discovered them, burrowing tunnels through the yellow hide and leaving little trails of squash sawdust in their wake. I’m surprised I didn’t find one, Disney style, in the central seed cavity of a squash up-turned, post-gorge and rubbing his full belly.
Portrait of a Cauliflower
I can’t grow cauliflowers. Believe me, I’ve tried. I tried germinating them from seed first, which turned out to be a fool’s errand, so troublesome are they to rear when young. I’ve tried buying plug plants – surely an easy option. But they sulked in their newly fed soil, like grumpy teenagers and stubbornly refused to grow so much as a millimetre. In the end they succumbed, I think willingly, to slugs and died.
Charred Cabbage, Chickpea Mash & Salsa Verde
If you’re an enthusiastic grower like me, you too may have got a bit over-excited about red cabbages in the summer and planted a good couple of rows only to realise, come winter, that however much you love red cabbage, a household of two cannot eat more than one red cabbage a week (not without inciting mutiny anyway). Hence why red cabbage is likely to appear on some upcoming supper club menus…
Jewelled Sprout Slaw
Poor sprouts. They really need to sack their PR team. Spooned reluctantly on to our Christmas plate (“I’ll have one but that’s it”), we almost luxuriate in the ritual of loathing them. But that, I think, is our failure, not the sprouts’. The problem is that we don’t cook them properly, or we cook them at all. A sprout will never be delicious when it has been boiled and certainly not when it has been boiling since Christmas morning as was my Grandma’s preference. The only way to successfully serve a sprout is to fry it or eat it raw and shredded.
A Love Letter to Brassicas
Christmas is brassica season, harvest time for the cabbage growers. The time of year to marvel at the kale which just keeps growing in all weathers; to gaze in wonder at the red cabbage, gigantic purple bowling balls that were nothing more than a palm-full of seeds a few months ago; to revel in the spectacle of the sprout trunks, strong, regal and towering above everything else in the winter patch.
Celeriac Dip with Za’atar, Almonds & Garlic
I’ve had better harvests, I admit. The celeriac crop this year is, and this is being generous, a collection of golf balls; more straggly root than flesh and with frequent incursions by slugs. They looked promising initially – lots of pert green growth on top. But that was just a cover for the failures below ground. All mouth and no trousers.