A Week of Grubby Knees

It has been a glorious week of sun, see....dlings and pollinating!

On Monday afternoon we received the call to say that our neighbours' pear tree's were in blossom.
This is a call that we await every year and immediate action is called for. Marcus rounded up the troops and took the girls over the road so that they could gather the necessary blossom samples. As is probably apparent from the photograph, we have one small espalier pear tree in our garden. This was given to us five years ago when our friends moved to France. For the first three years it flowered but didn't produce a single fruit. Ideally pear trees should be planted in pairs!
Two years ago Marcus had the bright idea that we should attempt to pollinate the flowers manually. We asked around to find out if there were any pear trees local to us and found a match. The first year produced 6, the second 12 and, if we are going to follow a pattern here, this year, we are hoping for 18 fabulous comice pears!
The girls wafted their blossom samples under the flowers on our tree; flitting backwards and forwards like bees or butterflies (buzzing was optional!) and now we wait.

With all the warmth and sunshine that we have been enjoying our Garden Room (just a posh name for the Lean To) is beginning to look like a tropical rain forest. We desperately  need to pot things up or get them into the ground at the allotment.

Our tomato sowing in early March resulted in just the one cherry tomato plant (we are still waiting for the rest to pop up in the lawn!) and about a hundred beef steak tomato plants. We have already potted up and given away some of these. Yet, still we have a seed tray, a good three quarters full, with a dense forest of tomato seedlings that we need to find homes for.

A family trip to the allotment this weekend offered up the opportunity to test  the new drain pipe and water butt system on our shed. It works (at least it does if you carry a watering can of water from the water trough and pour it into the drain pipe!). Unfortunately a design flaw, that was not spotted in the original plans, meant that the water butt could not be raised off the ground to enable tap access in the usual manner. Instead, we have had to dig down and now have a 2 ft deep hole, directly in front of the tap! It works though!

Date with Chocolate!

So here we are, several days into our new reduced sugar plan and it is going pretty well. I would like to stress the "reduced" at this point. As a mother of 3 girls, now aged 8 and 11 years old (yikes!), it would be near impossible and (dare I agree?) "unfair" for me to believe that we could eradicate sugar completely. Instead, we are aiming for a 5:2 ratio of good to bad.
For my part, I am busily creating healthy, low sugar treats for weekday snacks and deserts to fulfil the '5' bit. They then contribute to the '2' bit, by tucking into chocolate, cake and ice cream at the weekend!

Despite the controversy surrounding the use of fructose (largely instigated by the findings of Dr Robert Lustig and the food industries use of high fructose corn syrup) I  favour the use of  whole, blended fruit (both fresh and dried) as my alternative sweetener. Unlike fructose syrup, the fibre and vitamins in fruit are definitely beneficial to the body and I like the extra flavour that they impart.

My Chocolate Date Squares were created with Marcus in mind and were a resounding success. To date (nice play on words there!) he has been pretty tricky to win over to the low sugar camp but these were consumed with surprising enthusiasm and earned an easy  5/5 Clean Plates score 

They have a rich chocolate flavour and a satisfyingly soft, dense texture. I hesitate to call them brownies as that creates an expectation that they may not meet but as a chocolate square they certainly stand proud.

I ended up making these twice this week and they were even well received by all the children that came round to play after school.

Chocolate Date Squares (Clean Plates 5/5 - they even pass the Marcus Test!)

2 Apples
60g Dates
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 Tsp Vanilla extract
1 Tsp Espresso Coffee
1/4 Tsp Salt
5 Tsp Agave Nectar
120g Plain Flour
40g Ground Almonds
1 Tsp Baking Powder
50g Cocoa Powder
2 Eggs

Pre-heat the oven to 170C/Gas 3 and line small baking tin (20cm x 20cm) with parchment.
Pop the dates into a cup or small bowl and cover with boiling water to soften. 
Peel, core and slice the apples. Place in a small sauce pan, cover with water, bring to a gentle simmer and stew until soft.
In a food processor blend together the dates and apple with 6 teaspoons of the water that the dates have been soaking in.
Once smooth add the vanilla extract, coffee, olive oil, salt and Agave Nectar and continue to blend until you have a fairly loose puree. If the puree seems rather thick add a little more of the date water.
In a mixing bowl whisk the eggs before adding the apple and date puree. Stir until everything is well combined.
Fold in the flour, almonds, cocoa and baking powder until you have a thick, chocolatey paste.
Scrape it into the tin and bake for 15 - 20 minutes until firm.
Cut into squares and enjoy!  

Naked Wine Drinking!

It is official - I am an Angel!  

A few weeks ago; just as we were embarking on our £80 feeds 5 Challenge, my friend Abby introduced me to a rather fabulous excuse to drink wine. Not that I really needed another one but "safety in numbers" as the saying goes!
She invited me to try a case of wine from the Norwich based company Naked Wines and to become a Wine Angel.
What can I say?
Firstly and of vital importance, the wines were delicious and of a much higher quality than I am usually drawn towards or able to afford. I have, in the past, tended more towards quantity rather than quality! Except of course with our Home Brew (quality all the away there folks!)
Secondly, by investing £20 a month into my wine account, I am contributing to what can best be described as, crowd funding, for independent wine producers. Just brilliant! Every glass of wine that I now drink is helping someone! Below is a lovely little flow diagram from the Naked Wines website showing how it works.

Naked Wines is a customer-funded wine business

Our customers, called Angels, fund talented, independent winemakers and get rewarded with delicious wines at wholesale prices in return.

What better way to spend the money that I have saved reducing our weekly food budget, than to invest it in wine? It may not be quite as commendable a spend as my friend Katherine, who donated the savings that she made to Comic Relief but it is still, ever so slightly, angelic.

Looking forward to that Friday feeling tonight when I can select a bottle from my well stocked wine rack - I believe a certain maturity has finally been achieved!

Easter Aftermath ..........Sugar Reduction!

A more wholesome brown than chocolate
It is astounding how resilient children can be to chocolate induced sickness. Despite a restless Monday night in the Cross-Broome household and late night vows to not eat any more for a few days; my hardcore chocoholics bounced back within hours.
As early as 9.30 the next morning I had a request to "try a little bit of the posh ones" (apparently, the Harrods Chocolate Chicken and Bear that they had received for their birthday were calling to them from the sideboard).
Fortunately for the Chicken and Bear (they are currently still in possession of their heads and other limbs). I spent much of the night plotting a sugar reducing plan for the whole family. Brown week will now herald the start of, once again (we have been here before, last year!), reducing our refined sugar intake.



I created this recipe last year, it is a big favourite with the girls, particularly for breakfast, as the bars are both filling and tasty. Fab grab and run fuel for busy mornings. Like the Banana Ice lollies this is a great way of using up brown/black bananas.

A majority of the sweetness comes from the dates and bananas but the cinnamon and vanilla extract lend themselves to being useful sweetness enhancers, as well as being complimentary flavours.

I think that this actually tastes pretty good raw so a bit of bowl licking might be in order! You do need to be careful not to over cook it as dry edges and crispy top bits are not so tasty. I always smooth the top off so that it colours more evenly and try not to cook it for too long so that it remains moist.

Banana Bar Recipe (Clean Plates 4.5/5 - Still can't completely convince Marcus!)

2 Ripe Bananas

180g Dates

80ml Olive Oil

0.25 Tsp salt

0.5 Tsp Ground Cinnamon

1 Tsp Vanilla Extract

50g Dessicated Coconut

50g Ground Almonds

180g Oats

50g Chopped Apricots

Pre-heat the oven to 180C/Gas 4 and line an 8 inch square cake tin.

In a food processor blend together bananas, dates, salt, cinnamon, vanilla and olive oil until smooth.

Add the coconut, almonds and oats to the mixture and blitz for a couple more minutes.

Stir in the chopped apricots and then scrape the mixture into the lined cake tin, smooth over the top and bake for 25 – 30 minutes until just browning on the top and edges.

Use a sharp knife to cut into 18 bars whilst still warm.

These are best eaten cold so we keep ours in the fridge.

With Easter well and truly out of the way I will be concentrating my efforts on reducing our refined sugar intake. I suspect that this will not fit very well with our £80 a week budget as both fresh and dried fruit is more expensive than sugar. With this in mind I am keeping my budget a little more open ended for next week and will reassess at the end of the week.     

Junk Sculpting and the start of 'Brown' Week?

A Dragon and a Dragon Slaying Machine! 

That was the brief given to our party guests on Saturday. The results were pretty impressive for a group of seven and eight year old's, a couple of hours work and a pile of rubbish.
The days leading up to the party were particularly satisfying for my 'skip diving' tendencies and torture for Marcus. The girls were given permission (by me) to seek and gather all that they could in the way of street debris (hub caps, bolts, washing machine drums, bits of pipe and unidentifiable metal or plastic objects) to build into our own 'back garden dump'.    

As I look out onto the garden, I do wonder whether, 'mobility veichle' and 'armoured horse' might be more fitting descriptions for these completed works of art! There is, however, definitely something quirky and fun about their form that brings a smile to my face, especially when they are being ridden in or on! Who would have thought that some seed trays, bike wheels, mops and pipes could be so easily transformed?

 

The party and party treats, preceded the arrival of the 'Easter Bunny' on Sunday. He arrived heavily laden with yet more chocolate to add to the hoard that the girls have been building over the last few days. Despite massive chocolate consumption from all, both yesterday and today, we still seem to have more than enough to cover breakfast, lunch and dinner for the forthcoming week. As I start dreaming up recipes for chocolate soup and casserole, it looks like 'brown' week is definitely a possibility! Unless, that is, the groans from upstairs, about feeling 'a bit sick' become a reality and I spend the night providing comfort and sick bowls to the three of them.
I can almost hear them begging me for some purple sprouting or creamed suede!

Worms! and Giant Beetroot

With April just a matter of hours away we discovered that there was rather a lot to be done on the allotment. Much as we try to keep on top of everything; work and a constant stream of social commitments (the latter more for the girls than ourselves!) invariably tends to get in the way. Before we know it seed packets are claiming that they should have been sown yesterday and our ground preparation is far from complete.  

With heavy rain predicted for the whole day, the weather forecast was far from ideal for a day at the allotment but needs must. It actually turned out just to be heavy showers and with 'the smallest shed on the allotment' to shelter in we managed to make pretty good headway with our digging, weeding and sowing. Some of us got plenty of rest as well!

We have finally relocated our old wormery to the allotment and are hoping that we can kick start it again, without the cost of purchasing speciality worms. Apparently Tiger worms are the best species for the job but they are fairly costly (£20 for 1/2 a kilo from worms direct). Unfortunately our history of worm survival is rather poor. Over the last couple of years we have invested three times in this particular species of worms and only succeeded in killing them.
We are convinced that this is partly owing to the poor design of the wormery. The worms are able to wriggle through the holes in the bottom and then drown in the sump of liquid worm juice/fertiliser that is stored underneath.

Our alternative to this rather costly (and cruel) method is to collect our own. The girls have become our designated worm collectors. The bigger and juicier the better and with a bit of luck they will be too fat to wriggle to their deaths. 

At best our wonderful peelings will become fabulous worm juice (rather than soup!) and help us to grow enviable vegetables. At worst, the peelings will just compost away in a bin and we won't have killed half a kilo of worms and wasted another £20.

On the subject of enviable vegetables, it turns out that, what I had thought last year, was chard, and merrily cropped the leaves accordingly, was in actual fact a beetroot. A beetroot of enormous dimensions!

The girls enlisted their knowledge of 'The Enormous Turnip' story and pulled and pulled and pulled! Until...........

Just like the story, we roasted it to eat with our dinner and whilst it was definitely rather woody in places, that one enormous beetroot was big enough to share between 8 of us. A far cry from our dismal attempt at cauliflower growing!!

Yummy! Nettle and Bacon Flan

My bike is in need of repair at the moment (something to do with a cotter pin needing replacing ). It is just about holding out for short trips to and from school but I doubt if it would make it to the market and back in one piece. This has put a bit of a strain on my shopping habits and forced me to shop and forage closer to home. Luckily nettles are a little more abundant than a couple of weeks ago so I have been arming myself with my trusty, yellow, rubber gloves, to take the girls to and from school, and gathering fresh nettles daily!

The smell of nettles is really rather wonderful - all, sort of, green and peppery, much like their taste. Texturally they worked brilliantly in the flan that I made yesterday. I have made similar ones using either Kale or watercress but I think that the nettles actually worked better than either of  those.

Unlike when you use them in soup, you do need to blanch the stingers before hand. Simply plunge them into a pan of  boiling water, for all of two minutes, and then quickly refresh under the cold tap. This should ensure that they keep their fabulous, vibrant green colour.

Because the nettles are so young at the moment they are nearly all just 'nettle tip' anyway so I haven't had to throw much in the way if stalk away or even do much chopping. For the flan, I gave the blanched nettles a few quick slices with the knife before adding them but it probably wasn't necessary.

The actual flavour of the nettles was rather overpowered by the cheese and bacon but the texture that they provided was absolutely fabulous. Watercress can be stringy, unless finely chopped, and kale might be considered a bit tough. The nettles, however, were soft yet had some fibre to them and worked just perfectly with the smooth cheesy custard and the crisp salty bacon.
 

We ate this warm with baked potatoes and salad but I actually think that it was even nicer the next day when it was cold! I have only given it a score of 4/5 Clean Plates because two of the tasters are not so keen on flans in general. They did however agree that using nettles was infinitely better than my kale version and both made a good effort at eating it!

Nettle and Bacon Flan (4/5 Clean Plates)

220g Plain Flour

30g Polenta

140g Cold Butter

50g Parmesan

1 Egg

2 Eggs

300ml Double Cream

150g Smoked Streaky Bacon

2 Garlic Cloves

1 Red Onion

80g Nettles (blanched)

100g Mature Cheddar

Nutmeg

1. Place the flour, polenta and butter into a food processor and whizz until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.

2. Add the Parmesan and the egg and pulse until the pastry comes together. Add a small amount of cold water if needed.

3. Wrap in cling film and chill for 30 minutes.

1. On a lightly floured surface roll out the pastry so that it is about the thickness of a pound coin and big enough to line a 26cm tart case.

2. Line the tart case, leaving some overhang to allow for shrinkage and chill for another 30 minutes.

3. Pre-heat the oven to 200ºC/Gas 6 and blind bake for 15 minutes, continue to bake for another 5 – 10 minutes until the pastry is golden.

4. Remove from the oven and reduce the temperature to 170C/Gas 4. Trim off the overhanging pastry.

5. In a large jug whisk together the eggs, yolk and the cream and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

6. Remove the rind from the bacon and chop into 2cm pieces, dry fry until lightly browned and set aside. Chop the onion and crush the garlic. Add a splash of oil to the frying pan that you have just cooked the bacon in and soften the onion and garlic.

7. Arrange the bacon, onion, garlic and blanched nettles in the tart case and sprinkle over the grated cheese. Pour in the egg mixture and cook for 30 -40 minutes until the egg has set and the top is golden.