extending the growing season

My heliotropic seedlings have started coming up. Mesclun mix was first, but mustard greens have taken the lead. Everything is up now, spinach the last to stick two long thin leaves out of the dirt. Collards have a bit of a purple tint to their young stems. One of these days im going to feel like putting these in the real ground.

Dad and I built this garden

A number of years back, Dad and I cleared out a little 12×6 patch of vines and small trees in between the road and the drainage ditch. We laid down an old cross tie and piled in whatever compost dirt we had at the time. We tried to maintain a vegetable garden there, we did miss a few years. One year Dad even boldly planted a winter garden of broccoli and brussels sprouts.

It is now heading back towards winter (though sunny days in the mid 80s don’t really give that impression). I decided to crack the bed back open. It was in decent shape, but i was going for a full overhaul.

The first stop was a visit to the local garden store. Hutto’s is an excellent store, if my endorsement isn’t enough, Felder digs it too. I asked for any seeds that would still grow if i planted them now. I left with packets of turnip, kale, mustard, collard, spinach, mesclun salad mix, lettuce, cabbage and radishes. When handed the large packets of turnip, kale, mustard and collard greens, I was told “a little goes a long way.” I’m sure that is true, but i have a lot of seeds, so they will probably go even further. I grabbed a bit of gin trash compost and some winter bed fertilizer to get things going.

Back at home, i piled dirt into egg cartons and sprinkled seeds in. I covered each with another layer of dirt and patted it down gently. Then I watered them and put them on the screen porch. All together, I made twelve cartons of seed to germinate. I would put the turnips and radishes straight into the bed when it was done.

Over to the street, I moved the old cross tie out of the way to make room for fresh, still creosote-smelling cross ties. The kind that leave your skin itching for days. Since creosote is heavily dangerous for the plant life, and already leaving mold in its tracks, I covered the bottom, bed-side, and top with plastic sheeting and lay them in place. Two nine foot timbers make me a eighteen foot bed. I filled the cracks underneath with old bricks strewn in the garden. Mondo/monkey grass had to be transplanted. Some stayed to form an edge between the road and the garden, some lined the ditch to be a last line of protection against erosion from the garden, and the rest went to the wheel barrow, where anyone is free to have it.

Clearly, i needed dirt to fill in the bed. Another trip to Hutto’s got me a cubic yard of Mrs. Hutto’s Bedding Mix for $35. That will do for now. Maybe another yard in the spring when i want to level it out a bit more.

Today the turnips and radishes got planted, as did moms brussels sprout plants. Some of the seeds have started to sprout so that is all quite exciting.

More as it grows.

with our powers combined…

Last time I made cauliflower soup, adam complained about the lack of calories. I forgot to tell him that it had lard in it. That was in Bristol, when I found cauliflower 3 for 99p one day. I just chopped them up, boiled them with lots of spices and sauteed onion, and called it a meal. It was a bit sparse, but cost less than £1 (for what turned out to be 8 hefty servings) to make when you counted only the two heads of cauliflower that I used.

Thankfully, I didn’t write that recipe down. When mom said that she was about to throw out the cauliflower that was bought a week or so ago, i protested. I found two good looking recipes online and decided to combine the power of the two. One was for creamy roasted cauliflower soup. The other was a curried cauliflower soup. What i ended up with was a Curried Cream of Cauliflower Soup, which was rich and creamy, but with enough curry to keep me warm.

Recipe after the jump (i’ve recently thought it would be neat to have a reason to say “after the jump”).

... here paired with minted water and leftover cornbread.

First get some Cauliflower and chop into small florets. One small head seemed to be good for three people. Add in some garlic cloves (i used three) and onion (one quite small one) chopped roughly into sizes that, while large enough to roast, were small enough to not be of a disagreeable size if they were consumed in whole. Salt and pepper go on at this point, I am a big fan of the pepper, so i put lots. I also put some coriander, curry powder and something that turned out to be turmeric (gives the yellow color) on. A drizzle of olive oil went on and i tossed it all together. This all goes on a roasting tin/tray and into the oven at 425 degrees Fahrenheit (220C) for half an hour (until nicely roasted), tossing and turning around the halfway mark.

We had something which could have been chicken broth/stock frozen, so i had that in a pot melting with some more water and a chicken bullion cube. The idea is to get enough liquid to hold the cauliflower in, chicken or vegetable stock is good for flavor of course. This may have been about three cups, but your experience may vary. Go easy on the amount of liquid as you can always top it up if you desperately need some after the cauliflower is added.

When that is on a boil, slide in the roasted cauliflower cocktail into the pot. Drop in some thyme and bay leaves at some point about now too. Let that simmer for about half an hour until the cauliflower is well tender. At this point most recipes call for a blender to puree the stuff down to a point at which it is unrecognizable. Not wanting the fuss, i pulled out a potato masher which makes short work of the cauliflower. You retain some texture and browned bits this way. The soup is almost done. The final twist is cream. Most recipes call for milk or light cream, but we don’t play around with dairy fats in this house – go for heavy whipping cream (double cream for the brits). I put in nearly a half pinter. No rule on this, just pour and stir until you think it looks good. Make sure it is warmed back up, and serve.

Variations to get you started: you can always add more pepper to any recipe, red, white or black would be lovely here. Nothing wrong with some fresh or dried peppers either. If you want to posh it up with a garnish cilantro may be just the job. Broccoli can be cooked in a similar manner, but may not agree with the curry so nicely, so go easy if adding it to the vegetable mix. Potatoes could probably bulk it out in a pinch. If you go light on the curry, cheese is a popular addition at the end with the cream, just make sure it melts and gets back up to hot.

good Polish Portions at good Polish Prices

Sometime over easter holiday, there appeared a new restaurant around the corner on Gloucester Road. EasyJet orange chairs, paintings of the Beatles on the wall, and a sign that beckons you to come in and enjoy “Delicions Fresh Polish Food.” The delightful misspellings and half-translations don’t stop there. Really, it is part of the appeal that not everything has been translated properly into english. It adds a new dimension of authenticity of the experience. As I have learned, it is fun to go into a restaurant in a foreign country where you don’t know anything on the menu. In your home country (or at least one which shares its language with you) you would expect to be able to read menus clearly. Chopin provides the perfect balance of the experiences.

This is, by the way, a review. As far as I can tell, this is the second review of Chopin to hit the interwebs. A not so thorough search on the googles indicates that a Mark Taylor beat me to it.

So. My first experience was probably within a few weeks of the restaurant being opened. M and I headed there for a cheeky “Beef Stroganow” before dinner. We got it takeaway and it took about 10 minutes, what one might expect for a takeaway. Nothing to be surprised about here. We got home and opened the box, delighted to find a massive load of meat and gravy. This was definitely the hearty fare that we expected. The two of us split the tab, which was £4. Very cheap for a large main course, even if it didn’t have any vegetables with it – though, if we had sat down to eat it, it would have come with bread.

The next visit had ulterior motives. We had just booked tickets to Poland and needed a hostel to stay in. The only hostel in Rzeszow required phone booking. M, A and I headed to Chopin for lunch. We dined on massive baked potatoes and hearty soups before lectures. The waitress/hostess/lady who works there, was very sweet and tended to the table probably the perfect amount – she made sure that we had everything we needed without being pesky. This is when we learned that she doesn’t speak much english. Generally fine as the menu is numbered, but when we asked if she could make a phone call for us, she stalled. She got the chef out to handle us. Very nice chap as far as we can tell, was amused to fine we were going to Rzeszow, and said we should go to Warsaw instead.

I came to frequent the restaurant more, hitting it three days in a row at one point. The food is hearty, fresh and served in large portions. The prices are pretty much as low as possible. Side dishes are all 99p, but these can easily be a starter for their size. I personally love the fried beetroot and the cabbage. Every day has a special deal on, which I have taken advantage of twice. Once was a free starter of bread, pate and lard, which is surprisingly nice. Not a big fan of pate, but this one was nice, and the lard mixed in was an interesting substitute to butter on bread. Sunday is pork chop schabowy day, and their fried pork chop (comes with cabbage and chips) is only £5.20, a decent discount from the usual. At one point, there were six of us having dinner there. each of us had two or three courses and a pint. The total was less than £60. At least two of us eked out three courses on a tenner.

This is my review of the pork chop. One review (yes, that only other review), doesn’t rate it highly, claiming that the flattened pork chop schabowy could have been anything, chicken, veal, pork, cork or a shoe insole. The author is certainly right, it could have been anything, but for those who would prefer to ignore skepticism, this is not a relevant point. I would like to add that while it could have been anything, it tasted like a fried pork chop. People are less likely to confuse tastes, such as pork, chicken, and insoles, if they know how to tell the difference between the items. So, if one thinks that the pork chop schabowy it could have been chicken or veal, it is probably an indication that all of the chicken, veal and insoles they have had actually taste of pork. I have been fortunate to have good quality and diverse foods in my life, and I am inclined to say that it tasted of pork. I am not an authority on how insoles taste, so I do not speak with the authority Mr. Taylor has. One housemate even gave a good rating to their burger, not what I would have thought to have at a Polish restaurant, but well done nonetheless. Bigos, which is described on the menu simply as “Bigos” is delicious, various smoked meats in cabbage. Potato thug pie was enthusiastically recommended by the waitress, and it turned out to be some sort of large potato pancake folded over a meaty gravy-y filling. For £7.20, this is a cracking deal for hungry people who don’t want to be hungry anymore. Or even for those who just like the rich taste of good meat in a tasty gravy. You cannot lose.

I have eaten many other things there, and sampled off other peoples plates as well. These things I found to be good. My main complaint was that the chicken soup with noodles was very hot, and the layer of oil on top (its the same in Poland, I found) keeps the soup from cooling off. So, it was a bit hot. There are times (about half the time I have been) when they run out of things in the kitchen. They always come up with an acceptable substitute, as far as I can tell.

So, to summarize:
Large portions.
Hearty food.
Meat.
Very cheap.
Really, really cheap – £10 for three courses and a pint.
They find it jokes when you tip in Zloty.
Excellent rail links: walking distance of Redland station and Montpelier station.

This is where it is.

Really, cracking resteraunt. I don’t think they know anything about profit margins, and seem to be having a hard time drawing in customers. It is very nice inside and the staff are about as lovely as they come. The ad hoc substitutions and minimal english make the experience exciting and authentic in a whole new way. Go there. Its delicions.

This is the part where I load the post with keywords in the hopes that it will be picked up by the great algorithm by which we search the interweaves: Chopin Bristol Gloucester road arches fresh Polish food takeaway take away eat cheap good Chopin restaurant.

Ah, and here is the address/phone number:
217 Cheltenham Road
Bristol BS6 5QP
0117 904 3573

fresh

The cheese turned out surprisingly mature. But then, i didnt really know what to expect in the first place. It was quite firm on the inside of the ball (it was a large ball, about 500g, over a pound!). So after sitting in brine for a day and a half, it was very salty on the outside (rinsed most of the salt off) and soft there. The inside, however, was much more firm, it had a bit of flavor, but we couldnt pin it down.

At any rate, we gathered our fresh basil, tomatoes (49p and 50p respectively from the grocers) and put it all together with the fresh Focaccia bread that M made.

We had infused some thyme and rosemary in olive oil the night before. Made a wonderful sandwich:

mmmm.

thats cheese

Borat in McDades, Northside Drive, Jackson

I hope I am not getting ahead of myself. I found a new recipe for cheese and am giving it a go. I have not finished yet, it needs to dry then sit in brine for a day before eating it… so i cant give you the full story.

Basically, since being in Italy and having lovely fresh mozzarella for panini (paninis? panina?) I have wanted to make some mozzarella. This is the most expensive bit of the deal, and would also work great on pizzas (easy to make the crust, easy to make cheap sauce, needs cheese).

So a little bit of looking around on the interwebs led me to this: The University of Cincinnati Beginning Cheese Making course. This gave possibly every bit of information I could imagine needing to start making cheese. I got a gallon of milk, some citric acid and rennet and got down to it. Unfortunately, i think there is some precision required when making cheese that i just didn’t have. For instance, with no thermometer to check that the milk was being held at 30 degrees Celsius, i mixed boiling water with cold water in a 1:2 ratio and stuck my finger in to see about how it felt. Without proper teaspoon measures, i relied on reckoning.

In the end, this did not serve me too well, as I never achieved a “clean break.” I attempted to continue with the process and squeezed out as much whey as I could, ending up with something like cream cheese. Lots of it. Still determined to make cheese, I hit ebay for the supplies to make my work more precise.

I now have all the kit I need for cheesemaking, but also have found a new recipe. This one is simpler, requiring only milk, buttermilk and a dash of salt.

Here is my summary version:
Ingredients: 2 parts whole milk, 1 part buttermilk, 1tsp salt.
1. bring milk to a boil
2. quickly add in buttermilk
3. stir until curds and whey separate
4. pour into cheesecloth to strain out whey
5. squeeze out whey, hang to dry

thats as far as I have gotten, it is hanging to dry right now:

After that you sit it in salty water for about a day before eating. Here is the original for reference, and details:

http://www.ishotthechef.com/2009/04/23/making-curds-and-whey/

So perhaps I will report on the progress after I eat some, maybe I will make a fashionable picture of the cheese resting on a lovely salad. But maybe not. I do hope to keep making different cheeses until I am able to make panini and pizza from scratch.

so, as a bonus, easy way to make fresh pizza sauce:
Set tomatoes in boiling water until the skin cracks, take them out, peel them and mash them. Add in crushed garlic, fresh basil, salt, and any other herbs and spices that you think would go nicely. Mash that all up, use a blender if need be. Since most of the taste is in the tomato, make sure you get nice flavorful ones, sometimes this means the smaller ones (if you use cherry tomatoes, you may feel comfortable leaving skins on, the would be a right pain to peel, just cut them a bit maybe) but probably just means going out to your garden and getting the freshest ones possible. If it looks a bit watery, just boil some of the water off. Also works great as a pasta sauce.

how to make snow ice cream

step one:

let it snow.

this is actually one of the more difficult steps, as many people have found it is rather difficult to control the weather.  conveniently for me though, it snowed monday. then again today.  monday saw a lot of snow drifting down peacefully, on occasions, it would thicken and come down furiously.  apparently, this was the hangover of a storm which shut down the congestion charging in london.  after lectures i found A and J making a snowMAN in the back garden, a small guy on the table.  as everyone got back in, we had a brief one-sided snowball fight with MS in his room studying.  a snowball went astray which led to a rather uneventful artillery exchange with the neighbors.

after dinner, a full war erupted in the house before we tackled the dishes.

which leads us to step two:

gather some snow in a bowl.

milk and sugar are the base ingredients. milk makes it more creamy, so, depending on the texture of the snow, you may need more or less milk. light dry snow may need a lot to get it just right. i err on the side of having it a bit too dry, counting on more mixing to soften it up, but you can always add more snow. sugar is added to your liking.
on my tuesday commute, i got to the station early. walking up and down the platform was nice, seeing how the snow gathered on the fences, snow angels, kids sledding in the park across the tracks. today, all the trains on the line were cancelled:

step three:
flavor.

if you want vanilla just add in some vanilla extract and youre done. we didnt have any, so i decided on chocolate. splashed in liberal amounts of cocoa powder, and threw in some vanilla for extra spice, nutmeg or a dash of allspice might go well here too. coffee ice cream may well be a good idea, provided you add cold coffee into the snow. there is pretty much no limit here.
the snow on thursday was amazing. though, it seems to have paralyzed the butcher and polish shops down the road, my main sources of meat for dinner. looks like it will be a meat-thin meal tonight.
i woke up and pulled back my curtains only to have a blinding white light come at me from the garden. it was overcast, but the snow was reflecting enough sun right back up to be a beautiful wonderland. i headed to redland station to get the pictures that i had missed tuesday before heading off to lectures.

now eat.
that was obvious.
it is delicious, the only ice cream acceptable on a snowy day.

cornbread, ain’t nothin’ wrong with that

i had to make a lot of unsure substitutions.

first it was the cornmeal. you cant find that over here. polenta in scoopaway said ‘cornmeal’ under it, but it was shockingly yellow, and, well, i could never be sure, having been away from real cornmeal for so long.

so i bagged it up and brought it home.

thats when i realized i needed a recipe.

consulting the sibs, m just made fun of my foreign language, but p supplied me with a recipe and a bit of advice.  i was short all the ingredients but possibly cornmeal, and a cast iron skillet, pretty crucial when it comes to cornbread making. but i had a cake PAN (not tin, as m pointed out so quickly).

fortunately, i had purchased almost exactly 2 cups of polenta, perfect for the recipe, which p reckoned was just right.  it was no problem getting an egg from the pet shop, and baking powder in the cupboard.  some vegetable oil appeared in the kitchen within a few days, all that i had left to acquire was two cups of buttermilk.  that proved a mission. i had to take the train to the big sainsburys as they were the only place near with buttermilk.

so.

start heating the oven up to around 230C, pour about 1/4c of vegetable oil into the pan and slip it in the oven.  while that heats, sift 1/2c flour with one teaspoon of salt, and about the same of baking powder, and i threw in some baking soda, just to be sure… stirred that into 2c of buttermilk, which i thought was rather like sour cream, way thicker than i thought it should be. but, i put it in anyway, and a beat up egg. poured in the sizzling oil to great excitement (a doing engineering calculus nearby). mixed it up quickly and sprinkled some last minute chillies on top, pushing them in to hide them a bit.

230C for 20 minutes. out onto a rack to cool.

it did turn out lovely, lots of sneaky chillies in there though. and the housemates kept calling it cake. tried many many times to explain that it wasnt cake… but they werent having it.

but the cornbread did win in the end. so maybe if i can bear the taunts of ‘cake’ again, ill buy some polenta!mom, dont get mad at me, it turned out really well, the first time! and came out of the pan clean and everything! you taught p well.

toast, eggs, sausage, bacon, tomatoes, beans, mushrooms…

even they call it a full english breakfast!