Salads Everyday

French breakfast radishes with greens

here in west cork, we are having the best weather in it seems like a century! you don't even want to think about cooking, its that warm. spain is even cooler than here, global warming? maybe. does it matter? not right now! (i'm half joking there) we seriously haven't had rain in weeks.

despite the lack of rain, one of the great things about this time of year is every time i go to the garden, there's something new to pick and chop up into a salad. which is great for a hot afternoon.
there's cauliflower, courgette, cabbage, kale, peas, beetroot, radishes, spinach, lettuce, onions, chard.... you get what i mean? its a great time to have a garden and this post is a celebration of that fact.

there's no recipe today but there's more posts on the way like: a tangy slaw for tacos, elderflower fizz and cocktails (yes, MORE cocktails!) and a recipe that goes great with crispy calamari. enjoy the photos, there's loads more on the FWDR instagram page.

little gems are a great lettuce to grow if the slugs don't get to them first!

smoked mackerel with chard, fennel and flowers

Green Garlic Dressing

purple sprouting broccoli shoots, kale buds, pea shoots, ruby steaks mustard, baby kale, green garlic and chive

its hard to believe that yesterday was the first day I got a whole salad out of the garden. everything seems a month behind at the moment, the spuds only just got their heads in gear, the over wintered cabbages are yet to form heads (will they?) and my peas just poked through the soil a week ago.

 

the salad bed (from bottom left to top right): easter egg radish (with mixed leaves to follow), ruby streaks mustard, garlic, little gem, garlic, beetroot, snow pea and ruby streaks mustard

this year I took a page out of joy larkom's creative vegetable gardening book and planted my salad bed with contrasting colours and texture, as well as planting the rows on the diagonal for visual interest. as you can see from the above picture its still has a bit more to fill out but the idea is starting to shape out.

 



a small garlic shoot for thining and using as green garlic

I only recently learned about green garlic (a.k.a wet garlic) as an ingredient. before the garlic reaches maturity the whole bulb and stem can be used, I picked mine very early as a thinning measure. its great in soups, dressings and marinades. the flavour is more subtle than mature garlic lacking the strong spicy edge. think: chives but better.

 



green garlic

the great thing about growing garlic yourself is a) its super easy and b) you can have a go with green garlic in the kitchen. (I've only seen it one or twice in the green grocers ) the use of green garlic is starting to pop up more in cookbooks and restaurants lately, so if you don't grow you're own you might see it popping up at a good green grocers soon. 

 

Jam Jar Dressings

i love watching cooking shows and eating! am i alone here? i don't think so. there's something so satisfying about it, your eating something delicious and watching someone make something delicious at the same time. what could be better, really? if you havent done this before i highly recomend doing so.

while eating and viewing i came across a great idea for a blog post. i was watching the program, Hugh's Three Good Things, with Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall, and having a bowl of stir fried kale with steamed rice. and one of his recipes was for jam jar salad dressing, (which i make myself at home all the time), and bingo, a blog post was born.

im not the first person to make salad dressing this way, but i still thought i'd share a couple of my favourite recipes for salad dressing made in a jam jar. and since i have been chasing my tail all week trying to stay on top of things. these jam jar dressing recipes fit right in, they are easy to whip up in a rush - just throw your salad items into a bowl, shake up a jam jar full of dressing and go! (or go veg out on the couch watching cooking shows!)

My favourite seed sowing guide, better than an iphone app!

i did find time this week to sow some seeds in the window sill for the polytunnel. tomatoes (4 types - money maker, sungold and tigerella were saved seed from last year, and a new one: chocolate stripe), tomatillos, two varieties of aubergine, and 2 dozen modules of sweet peas (for outside). i also got new nest boxes attached to the outside of my hen house. which is wonderful, it means i don't have to go inside the run to collect the eggs, just open a door and presto! the eggs are collected.

d.i.y. hen house made from a dog house

Celeriac Remoulade with Irish Bacon

so, after making this classic dish, celeriac remoulade. i realised that 1) remoulade is a fancy word for coleslaw and 2) its pretty tasty! and after a few seconds of wiki research i realised the name stems from french cusine and that remoulade is a sauce like aioli or mayonaise. so celeriac remoulade means: celeriac with a creamy sauce, or - coleslaw, i was RIGHT. i love coleslaw so thats probably why i think this is so tasty. the simpleness of the recipe and the flavours are lovely for a sunny day lunch or a picnic, if you're lucky enough to live somewhere it isn't raining.

preparing a celeriac

i have already mentioned my love of the root vegetable Celeriac before, if you care to read about my celeriac rants you can click, here. in the post i went as far as to claim myself an expert on the subject of celeriac. with some fancy trivia on the misnomer of its nickname: 'celery root.' very exciting and VERY nerdy. im still reserving extra space in the garden for my new root friends this year while cutting back on its stalky cousin. celeriac to me is a very understated veg, and everytime i peel, slice, or grate one im reminded this. what shows itself as an angry knobbly root in the garden is actually a subltle and friendly vegetable in the kitchen. sweet! this post is in a way a fairwell to a good friend, as this celeriac is the last celeriac from the garden this year, until october when the next crop will be ready. i've got the seed packets ready!

Stuffed Dumpling Squash with Chorizo and Rocket Salad

 

on one of my seed buying frenzies i grabbed a packet of Sweet Dumpling Squash seeds. not knowing really what they would turn out like, i figured they were a winter squash, all the packet said was "unsual light and dark striped skin with flesh of creamy orange. perfect for stuffing or cooking whole." so i guessed i couldn't go too wrong. once they were in the poly tunnel - happily growing away, i did some research. i read they were actually summer squash, but then i read they were winter squash. so i was confused, once harvested they seemed to be a bit of both. they have stored really well since i harvested them in september, and that puts them more in the winter squash genre, in my mind. i was worried i'd end up with too many squash going off all at once, like some of my courgettes (summer squash). this wasn't the case, as im staring at three plump firm specimens as i write this. after cooking their flesh turns soft and creamy, i look forward to growing more of these next year!

 

 

 

after eyeing up recipes for stuffed squash i decided to stuff my lil' dumplings with my new favourite ingredient from the bakery/deli. its a fresh chorizo iberico, which means the black iberian pigs were fed on acorns from oak trees for a period and also that it requires cooking before eating, unlike cured chorizos. its pretty rich and requires no oil for sauteing, the internal oils do all the work, yum! i also grabbed some st. tola organic goats cheese, creme fraiche. the rocket (or arugula) i got from my weekly C.S.A box from Kinsale Green Growers. the flavours melded together wonderfully, and one sweet dumpling squash happily fed two people, it would be perfect for 6-8 as a side dish too.

 

 

Vanilla & Blossom Salad: bees, butterflies, and their habitat

 

edible flower blossoms and wild flowers, clockwise from top left: calendula, cornflower (non edible), allium (onion family includes chives), nasturtiums, verbena, chamomile, borage

 

wildflowers, nectar rich plants, bees, butterflies, meadows and pollinators.
this gardening year for me has been focused on providing bees and butterflies with a suitable homeall through the summer. im attempting to do this by growing plants that these pollinators love: verbena, borage, chamomile, alliums, cornflowers, nasturtiums, legumes, and wildflowers. as well as staying away from chemical sprays and instecticides.

with modern agricultural methods we have systematically kicked out bees, butterflies, and other pollinating insects out of the coutryside. and by planting low nectar flowers in our gardens we have pushed them even further away from our homes! in the past before massive harvesting machines and plows were around, there were many many more hedgerows blooming with wild flowers, these hedgerows teamed with pollinators. in turn they helped to pollinate crops humans were growing beside these hedgerows. now, with new machinery our hedgerows are being taken out and replaced with fencing providing little sanctuary for our friendly bees and insects. and no wild flowers.
focused on beauty rather than function in our home gardens, modern flower beds are being planted with low nectar flowers, or flowers that have double blooms that make it harder for pollinators to reach nectar sources. another, cause of food loss for pollinators is our tendancy to mow lawns to an inch of their life. leaving no time for lawn daisies or dandelions to bloom and provide food for insects.

leaves and blossoms form the garden, as well as purple french beans: which i didn't use in the recipe, but should have!

don't distress! there's a few ways we can help out our pollinating friends. we can leave space for wildness in our gardens, we can plant flowers that attract pollinators, and we can refrain from using weed killer and chemical pesticides in our gardens. i find just having flowers growing in the veg patch makes being there that much more enjoyable, adding to the sensory experience. knowing you are in a place that bees and butterflies love!

Nasturtium Capers




nasturtiums add needed colour to the garden,
and attract bees and butterflies

nasturtium seed pods dangling off the vine





this may surprise you, but you can makes capers with nasturtium seed pods! i first heard of the idea last year. it seemed like a good idea, caper berries are an acutal berries of a certain shrub, and nasturtium capers are something like the 'poor mans' version. their flavour has a hint of the nasturtium spice you get in the flowers that mellows once pickled. if you have loads of nasturtium plants in your garden, is worth the hour it takes picking and jaring up these little buds. i got half a pint of seed pods from 3 plants, and i could have kept going.  this recipe suits that amount perfectly.

 

a pint o' pods

 

 

Harvesting Pods: pick the seed pods once they have turned green and big on the vine. don't use seed pods that have fallen off plants, they've dried up and will make new plants next year.

 

Baby Kale, Rainbow Chard and Beetroot leaf Ceasar

Baby Red Russian Kale, Rainbow Chard and Beetroot Leaves



im in love with hardy greens, i love their long growing season and i love their multiple uses, young and old. in this recipe im using three types that i grow every year: kale, rainbow chard, and beetroot. its a bit hard to find all these greens in the shops together, so growing them may be the best answer.
i like to use the tender young leaves in salads, rainbow chard adds a great splash of colour too the salad bowl.  older leaves of all these plants tend to need cooking, which opens them up to a whole range of culinary uses. you can even treat big leaves as two seperate veg, i cook the stalks seperate to the leafy ends, which cook more quickly.

my first time growing rainbow chard was alongside beetroot. in my first adult veg patch. i had two raised beds about 4 by 6 feet in length, right off a busy road on capitol hill, seattle. chard was a wonderful thing to grow, it kept growing slowly through the winter months, and provided a much needed green energy boost when the pocket strings were stretched. rainbow chard is one of the ultimate economy crops, it gives and gives. when all things are green in the garden its the entire spectrum, whats not to love?