Harvest festival

This is cheating slightly as the apples that are the main ingredient in this recipe were not grown in my garden but they were given to me by a colleague and it's a great way of using cooking apples. It's even a little healthy I like to think as it has yoghurt in.
Natalia's Apple tray bake cake
1 cup yoghurt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup flour
2 cooking apples, chopped
1 tsp cinnamon

Mix yoghurt with the bicarb of soda and then all the rest - the dough will look really sticky. Add the apples and add the cinnamon. should have more apples than dough. Pour into a brownie tin and cook for 160 degrees for 30-40 minutes.

The second set of potatoes did OK but I only harvested 3.3kg from the 8 or so seed potatoes. In comparison with last year's haul 2012 has not been a stellar year. I suppose I could have left them in longer but the slugs had already got started on themand the top growth was less than perky looking.

I also harvested 950g of rhubarb which I was going to make apple and rhubarb jam but unfortunately I burnt the jam by leaving it on the heat too long while I was focussing on sterilising the jars. Now I have sterile jars but no jam. Damn.

I have 4 more beetroot which I roasted and will make beetroot houmous with using a Nigella recipe (below but with sesame seeds substituted for cumin which is verboten in our house because it's horrid) though I am also partial to a Beetroot horseradish dip where you combine 250g of beetroot with 2 tbsp of horseradish and 100 ml of creme fraiche or yoghurt and blitz in the processor.
Ingredients

• 400g Chickpeas in tin, drained.
• 2-4 fresh Beetroot, peeled & boiled until soft.
• 2-4 cloves Garlic, crushed or chopped
• Juice of 1 Lemon
• 90ml Olive Oil
• 1 teaspoon fine sesame seeds
• 1/4 Cup Tahini (optional)

Method

1. Place all ingredients into a blender and process till smooth.
2. If it is too thick, gently drizzle a little water into the mixture until just right 

As a final fling the yellow courgettes have done me proud (ish).  I gathered 2.5kg of yellow courgettes including one that got out of control -1.7kg alone.  I'm not sure yet what to do with these monsters (along with a gifted marrow). Thoughts on a postcard please.  Maybe Nigella's courgette and raisin pasta...

The butternut squash look promising and I planted some Charlotte seed potatoes by the Jerusalem artichokes as an experiment. Even if there is no sign of growth I will leave tehm in for an early start next spring. Broad beans were sown in the potato area and deep rooted weeds dug up (mainly). A productive session.

Back to school

It's the time of shiny pens and new exercise books for school kids (do they still have those smelly rubbers and pencils too?). For gardeners, it's also the start of a new year. This is when we lay the foundations for the growth we hope to see in the following year.  It might seem that by cutting down old growth and tidying up in general we are putting the plot to bed but, in fact, by digging up perennial weeds and spreading compost and covering the bare earth, you are preparing the ideal growing conditions for new plants (or plumping the earthy pillows to carry on the slightly over-stretched metaphor).

It's a time to review the performance from the last growing year to see what has worked well and not. That one is easy this year - most things didn't work very well at all.  Really the only successes were the rhubarb and the raspberries (whose lack of autumn raspberries indicate they are summer fruiting).  Even the usually prolific Jerusalem artichokes and potatoes suffered this year.

The second planting of potatoes are looking a little sorry for themselves and may have suffered blight as the tops are wilted and a bit brown.  There are minimal signs of any new courgettes after the 2 giant yellow ones.

Luckily I was given 2 enormous marrows which I have used in a Moroccan stew.  The grape leaves are still languishing in the fridge as on the day I was planning to make dolma we decided that we preferred lasagne.

The year is not over yet though - we are still able to plant. I will give early potatoes given another go (Charlotte), and I will also plant some bulbs for spring displays, sow broad beans, onion sets and garlic onto the plot.

With all this planning I need to think about crop rotation. My brassicas (mainly sprouting broccolis) are already in the beds where tomatoes and courgettes were before, so my main decision is what to grow where the potatoes, onions and garlic were.  I think I will put the onions and garlic in front of the Jerusalem artichokes. This isn't the case for me but if you plan to plant brassicas in land where potatoes were then you need to lime your plot once taking up the potatoes.

The wrath of grapes?

At the weekend I cut back the grape vines which had got totally out of hand. They were so overgrown I couldn't even see the compost bins (even if I was really looking hard for them which I wasn't). 

This manic moment of pruning (well, butchering) revealed many but tiny bunches of green grapes below.  This made me think how clever people are and that there is a marvellously clever symbiosis of using grape leaves as wraps for food when there is a surplus of leaves once you cut back the branches to allow sunlight to ripen the grapes underneath. which then get made into wine (in places like Greece where they actually have sunshine - I just get dark red bullets). 

I have saved the largest leaves and will be making Quorn dolma at home when I get around to it.
Quorn/ beef dolma

Ingredients

• Dolmades
• 2 cups short grain rice, washed
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 tbsp pine nuts, toasted
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 small red capsicum, char grilled, skin removed and finely chopped
• 1 small aubergine, sliced and grilled then diced
• 50g currants
• 3-4 eggs
• Fresh black pepper to taste
• 1 tbsp dried oregano
• 3 lemons, (1 cut into slices and 2 made into juice)
• 3-4 tbsp olive oil
• 3 tbsp chopped fresh dill
• 200g vine leaves, approximately depending on the size of the vine leaves, approximately 70-80
• Lemon, garlic dipping sauce:
• Juice and zest of 1 lemon
• 1 clove of garlic finely minced
• 125g low fat natural yoghurt

Method

For the dolmades: wash the rice well and drain well. Bring to boil 3 cups of water and add rice and stir until boiling, reduce heat to very low and place lid on. Cook for 15 minutes then turn off the heat and let the pot stand for 10 minutes. Do not lift the lid.
Tip the rice out into a bowl and add the minced garlic, onion, red capsicum, eggplant, currants, pine nuts, oregano, and dill and combine gently, add 1 egg at a time and gently combine keep adding eggs until the rice hold together when you squeeze it into a ball, season with pepper.
Wash the vine leaves well if using packaged ones, leave soaking in clean cold water while you use them.
Take 1 vine leaf and place it on a board, shiny side down and add teaspoon of mix and roll into a small cigar shape folding in the sides as you go. Place then in a steamer, seam side down and pack them tightly together and steam them until cooked about 20-30 minutes, once cooked place them in a flat bottomed container with a lid and add sliced lemons and lemon juice and pour over olive oil, let marinate.
For the lemon garlic dipping sauce: Mix ingredients together in a bowl.
To serve: Remove dolmades from marinade, serve cold with dipping sauce.

Nutritional Analysis (average per 135g)

Energy	863kJ,
Protein	5.6g
Fat	8.0g
Saturated fat	1.2g
Carbohydrate	26.7g
Sugars	4.7g
Dietary fibre	2.5g
Sodium	320mg

A happy accident
Unfortunately I cut off the growing tips of a few Jerusalem artichokes in my over-enthusiasm of cutting. Luckily , it turns out that was the right thing to do - as was ignoring watering them! (though I still worry that the grape vines created a situation of extreme drought).This is the advice from RHS:

When stems are around 30cm (12in) tall, draw soil around them to a depth of 30cm 15cm (6in) to help stabilise plants as they grow. Cut back stems (including flowerheads) to around 1.5m (5ft) in midsummer so plants won’t be rocked by the wind, thus avoiding the need for staking. Only water in cases of severe drought.  When foliage starts to turn yellow in autumn, prune to leave 8cm (3in) stumps above ground level. Place the prunings over plants to keep the soil warm and aid lifting of tubers in frosty weather.

Now I just have to pick up all the debris, turn the compost, plant the potatoes, sow the broad beans and beetroot.  Easy.