More Amazing Salads

I have always been looking for a good salad recipe to use up left over chicken. This Thai Chicken, Coconut and Coriander Salad with Crispy Shallots is the best one I have found yet. If you don’t have any left over chicken, poach the chicken in the dressing as in the recipe., Coconut and Coriander Salad with Crispy Shallots

Thai Chicken, Coconut and Coriander Salad
1 x 400ml can coconut milk
Fresh or frozen lime leaves
2 Thai birds eye chillis, lightly bashed
Small bunch coriander
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon palm sugar, or brown sugar
2 chicken breasts, trimmed
40g toasted coconut chips (try Ocado)
½ a cucumber
3 carrots, peeled
1 red pepper, cut into very thin rings
1 lime
3 shallots, peeled
Sunflower oil
Sea salt

Place the coconut milk, fish sauce, the stalks of the coriander (saving the leaves for the salad), the chillis, the sugar, a teaspoon of salt and the lime leaves in a saucepan. Add the chicken breast and bring to the boil. Gently simmer to poach the chicken for 12–15 minutes or until cooked through. Remove chicken from the pan and rest. Turn up the heat on coconut milk and reduce until a few tablespoons remain. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Strain and add the juice of the lime. Taste and adjust seasoning. It should be fragrant, spicy, sour and sweet.

Meanwhile, shave the cucumber and carrots, leaving just the cores, with a peeler. Put in a large bowl with the coconut chips, the red pepper and coriander leaves. When cool enough to handle, shred the chicken.

Slice the shallots as thinly as possible. You can use a mandolin or food processor. Place in a small saucepan and just cover with oil. Over a high heat, stir the shallots frequently until they are golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain well on kitchen paper. Spread out thinly and allow to cook. Lightly season with salt and fluff up so that the shallots go crispy.

Celery Salad with Dates, Almonds, and Parmesan

When you get to my age and you have been cooking as long as I have, it is really hard to find recipes that are fresh, exciting or different but this simple celery salad is really exciting. I’m not even that keen on fruit or nuts in savoury dishes but the celery, lemon and the chilli really balance out the sweetness. It made a very tasty lunch!

Celery Salad with Dates, Almonds, and Parmesan
Serves 2
½ cup/large handful raw almonds with skins8 celery stalks, thinly sliced on a diagonal, use leaves too
6 dates, pitted, coarsely chopped
Zest of one lemon plus 2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Chunk of Parmesan, shaved
4 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
Very small pinch of crushed red pepper flakes

Toss almonds, celery, celery leaves, lemon zest and dates in a medium bowl; season with salt and pepper. Mix the lemon juice and olive oil together well. Add a small pinch of chilli flakes and mix through the salad. Serve with shavings of parmesan.Add the chicken to the bowl with the vegetables and then dress with the dressing (you may not need all of it.) Pile onto plates and top with the crispy shallots.

Warm Salad of Avocado, Baby Spinach and Bacon, Poached Egg

Salad Tiede was all the rage about 10 years ago. Literally translated as “warm salad” it is one of those culinary terms which just sound so much more exciting in French than it does in English. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have to taste exciting. Super quick and simple it relies on really great ingredients to transform it into something really special, so use the best bacon, avocados and eggs that you can find.

Warm Salad of Avocado, Baby Spinach and Bacon, Poached Egg
Serves 2
8 rashers of smoked streaky bacon, cut into lardons
2 organic, free-range eggs
Large handful or two of baby spinach leaves
2 ripe avocadoes, cut into large chunks
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
Splash white wine vinegar
Freshly ground black pepper
Extra virgin olive oil

Put a small pan of water onto boil. Fry the bacon in a little olive oil until really golden and crispy in a heavy bottomed frying pan. Remove the pan from the heat from the heat. Put the spinach leaves into a large bowl with the avocado chunks. Add the red wine vinegar to the pan with the bacon and allow to bubble away. Add a dash of white wine vinegar to the pan of boiling water, turn down the heat and carefully crack in the eggs. Poach until the whites have totally cooked but the yolks are still runny. Remove with a slotted spoon onto some kitchen paper to drain. Stir the mustard into the pan with the bacon. I should have cooled a bit by now. You want the mustard to amalgamate with the bacon fat and the vinegar, not cook. Season and pour the bacon and dressing over the spinach and avocado. Toss well and tip into bowls. Top with the eggs and a good grind of black pepper. Serve straight away.

Swiss chard and herb tart with young cheese

We all get a bit stuck in our comfort zone and when scanning through new recipes, I must admit I have a tendency to stick to the familiar, so I nearly bypassed this Ottolenghi recipe I found when looking for a new way of using up chard. For a start it was called Swiss Chard and Herb Tart with Young Cheese, and I knew for sure that I did not have any “young cheese” lying around in my fridge, nor was I very likely to be able to get hold of any very easily in the culinary void of Wimbledon. 

Secondly, I wasn’t sure about the mint. I am always a little wary of cooking mint. A little too much and it can e
nd up tasting like toothpaste. I wasn’t sure about the quantities of the ingredients (follow the net weights not the descriptions). 8 large chard leaves turned out to be a whole bag of chard from Riverford. And finally I didn’t have any courgette flowers – too early in the year for my allotment. But I decided to make it anyway and I am really pleased that I did. It is absolutely delicious, even without the courgette flowers. For the young cheese, I used a Abergavenny goat’s cheese that I found in Sainsbury’s.

Swiss chard and herb tart with young cheese
Adapted from Yotem Ottolenghi. Serves four as a main course.
½ small red onion, thinly sliced (85g net)
3 celery stalks and leaves, thinly sliced (220g net)
8 large chard leaves, roughly chopped, white stalks discarded (175g net)
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 tbsp torn mint leaves
2 tbsp chopped parsley
2 tsp chopped sage
2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
75g feta, crumbled
50g pecorino, finely grated
15g pine nuts, lightly toasted
Grated zest of 1 lemon
350g all-butter puff pastry, I used ready rolled
100g brocciu cheese (fresh cheese) or ricotta or fresh goat’s cheese
6 Courgette flowers, cut in half length-ways (optional)
1 egg, lightly beaten
Salt and black pepper

Place a large frying pan on medium-high heat and sauté the onion, celery, chard, garlic, mint, parsley and sage in the olive oil. Cook, stirring continuously, for 15 minutes or until the greens are wilted and the celery has softened completely. Remove from the heat and stir through the feta, pecorino, pine nuts, lemon zest, ¼ teaspoon of salt and a hearty grind of black pepper. Leave aside to cool.
Preheat the oven to 200C.
Roll the pastry, if necessary to a 3mm thick sheet and cut it into a circle, approximately 30cm in diameter. Place on an oven tray lined with baking paper. Spread the filling out on the pastry leaving a 3 centimetre edge all the way around. Dot the filling with large chunks of brocciu, ricotta or fresh goat's cheese.  Top with courgette flowers, if using. Bring the pastry up around the sides of the filling and pinch the edges together firmly to form a secure, decorative lip over the edge of the tart. Alternatively press with the end of a fork. Brush the pastry with egg and refrigerate for 10 minutes.
Bake the tart in the oven for 30 minutes until the pastry is golden and cooked on the base. Remove from the oven and brush with a little olive oil. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Apple and cinnamon crumble cake

It is apple season and I am overwhelmed with apples at the moment after inheriting a huge tree in my new garden. It left me craving apple cake but I have to admit that I did not have a famous, family recipe handed down for generations. I was determined it should be perfect. So, where to start?  No cookbooks of mine sprang to mind, so I scoured the internet and as I have found before, this is a dangerous pastime. There are literally thousands of recipes to choose from and no real guarantee that any of them are any good or even going to work. In the past I have stuck to safe bets such as Jamie Oliver, BBC Good Food or allrecipes.co.uk. Large corporations, such as Jamie Oliver have testing kitchens which try out all the recipes, so they tend to be more likely to work. Other websites such as allrecipes have ratings so you can try and get an idea on the feedback. So after sifting through at least half a dozen recipes I decided on one by Nigella Lawson which had been tested and had good ratings. I am very disappointed to say it really was not very good. More of a pudding than a cake, it just was not special at all. I was quite irritated to say the least. I had made it and photographed it for this blog, which had taken quite some time and now I was at a bit of a quandary as to whether I should just write it up anyway, and say it was OK or start again. 

The cake sat there uneaten. It was the kind of cake which was just not worth sacrificing your waistline for. I wanted a cake that made you say “to hell with the calories, this is too good.” I decided I just had to try harder. Back to the drawing board.  I thought about what I really wanted from an apple cake. Apply, crumbly, not too sweet and a hint of Cinnamon. I wanted a cake that it didn’t matter exactly how many apples you used or what type of apple they were, it would still deliver on texture and taste. I finally found a recipe and I am proud to say that it is nothing short of perfect. Irresistibly good and every bit worth the calories.

Apple and cinnamon crumble cake

For the crumble topping:
125g plain flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon (depending on how much you like cinnamon)
50g slightly salted butter, cold, cubed
125g demerara or light brown sugar
50g roasted chopped hazelnuts or almonds

For the cake:
250g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
125g slightly salted butter, softened
150g golden caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
100ml milk
2 large organic free range Eggs
6 Cox or Braiburn apples or 4 Bramleys
Juice 1 lemon

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C, gas mark 4. Grease and line a 22cm round cake tin with baking parchment. For the crumble topping, place the flour, cinnamon and cold butter into a large bowl or and rub together with your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar and nuts then transfer to the fridge. (Alternatively put the whole lot in a food processor and pulse until you have breadcrumbs)

2. For the cake, sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl and set aside. Using a mixer or electric handheld whisk, cream the butter, sugar and vanilla until pale and fluffy. In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk and eggs. Gradually beat a little flour into the butter mixture, followed by a little of the milk and eggs, alternating until they’re all mixed in. Spoon the cake mixture into the prepared tin and level with the back of a spoon. (This can all be done in a food processor too.)

3. Peel, core and halve the apples, then slice thinly and toss in the lemon juice. Arrange on top of the cake mixture then sprinkle the chilled crumble over the top.

4. Bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. You can see when it is done as the cake rises in the middle and the apples begin to poke out. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Great with vanilla ice-cream, whipped cream or clotted cream.

Nutty Super-food Salad

It is so much easier to eat healthily in the Summer I find. I actually crave salad, whereas in the Winter I crave stodge. Occasionally I pick up lunch on my way home from work, before I pick up the kids. Unfortunately, in my line of work, your job is to cook other people lunch, not cook or eat your own! Marks and Spencer is probably best for ready-made salads. Although I know that Waitrose also do quite and extensive range. Most of the ones I have tried, may sound nice, but are usually disgusting. They always seem to try just a bit too hard, chucking in any combination of trendy ingredients – black quinoa seeds, Camargue red rice, cranberries, amaranth leaf, black barley -  and the dressings are always really nasty – too much Japanese rice vinegar and Yuzu!. 

The other day I bought a selection of two different salads, both which unannounced contained seaweed!  Surely if you are going to add seaweed to your salad, you would mention it in the name, not just hidden in a long list of ingredients which are far too small to read with human eyes. Well my eyes anyway. I couldn’t work out what this slimy, sort "off-fishy" taste was in my salad. Narrowed it down to the Wakame which was eventually mentioned in the list of 30 ingredients, now that I had been forced to put my reading glasses on. I even like seaweed, on say nori rolls, where it is meant to be, but this was disgusting and both pots of salad ended up in the bin. 

However, I am pleased to say, after much trial and error, I finally found a ready-made salad that I really liked. Marks and Spencer Nutty Superfood Salad. Featuring green beans, peas, broccoli, carrots, black-eyed beans and quinoa plus peanuts, almonds and pistachios, it is absolutely packed with delicious ingredients. It comes two ways, either on its own or served alongside a dollop of cannellini bean hummus and with a soy and ginger dressing. 

It may seem like a lot of ingredients, but it is super easy. Make up a large batch and dress it as required. What is so fab about making it yourself, is you don’t have to skimp on your favourite expensive ingredients, which inevitably the supermarkets always do!

Nutty Super-food Salad

To serve 4

2 Broccoli florets, shredded

1 Handful of peas

100g French beans, cut into 1 inch pieces

1 large carrot, finely chopped

100g spelt (wheatberries, barley or farro) you can buy ready cooked

100g soya beans

200g cooked black eye beans (or another type of bean – haricot, cannallini)

50g quinoa (You can buy ready cooked)

1 tsp. poppy seeds

1 handful pumpkin seeds

1 handful peanuts

1 handful pistachios

1 handful almonds

A little freshly chopped coriander

For the dressing, mix together:

2 tbsp. soy

1 tsp grated ginger

1 tsp sesame

1 tsp honey

Juice ½ lime

½ tsp. chilli paste

Put three pans of water on to boil. In the first add the quinoa. Cook 12-15 minutes until all the quinoa has gone squiggly. Drain well. In the second add the farro, cook for 20-30 minutes until tender. Drain well. In the third pan, add a pinch of salt and then the green beans. When cooked, add the shredded broccoli, bring back to the boil and add the peas and soya beans. Bring back to the boil and drain. Drain well.

Combine the salad ingredients.

Mix the dressing ingredients together and drizzle over each portion or alternatively, toss through the entire lot in a large bowl.

Just What the Doctor Ordered!

Not feeling at all well this week. I had a serious bronchial, chesty cough and felt really under the weather. All of my great new year resolutions about healthy eating have gone out the window. I need energy fast and that means chocolate. I am a strong believer that we crave what we need, so I simply must be deficient in chocolate. I even found this article on Net Doctor, although it may be a bit far fetched.

“A study published in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal has shown that eating chocolate could have a positive effect in reducing cough symptoms. The study showed that an ingredient in chocolate, called theobromine, was more effective at stopping persistent coughs than common cough treatments. There’s one study that’s shown some links. But the benefit may well only be due to the sweetness of the chocolate rather than anything else,’ says Professor Eccles. This stimulates salivation and mucus secretion that helps relieve cough symptoms.'”

Rather than eat large mouthfuls of the cooking chocolate straight out of the fridge, I decided to make a chocolate brownie, and so as not to give up on all my good resolutions quite yet, I decided to add some healthy beetroot from my veg box.



There is absolutely no doubt, beetroot is super good for you –

1. Lower Your Blood Pressure
Drinking beet juice may help to lower blood pressure in a matter of hours. One study found that drinking one glass of beet juice lowered systolic blood pressure by an average of 4-5 points. The benefit likely comes from the naturally occurring nitrates in beets, which are converted into nitric oxide in your body. Nitric oxide, in turn, helps to relax and dilate your blood vessels, improving blood flow and lowering blood pressure.
2. Boost Your Stamina
If you need a boost to make it through your next workout, beet juice may again prove valuable. Those who drank beet juice prior to exercise were able to exercise for up to 16 percent longer. The benefit is thought to also be related to nitrates turning into nitric oxide, which may reduce the oxygen cost of low-intensity exercise as well as enhance tolerance to high-intensity exercise.
3. Fight Inflammation
Beets are a unique source of betaine, a nutrient that helps protects cells, proteins, and enzymes from environmental stress. It’s also known to help fight inflammation, protect internal organs, improve vascular risk factors, enhance performance, and likely help prevent numerous chronic diseases.
4. Anti-Cancer Properties
The powerful phytonutrients that give beets their deep crimson colour may help to ward off cancer. Research has shown that beetroot extract reduced multi-organ tumour formations in various animal models when administered in drinking water, for instance, while beetroot extract is also being studied for use in treating human pancreatic, breast, and prostate cancers.
5. Rich in Valuable Nutrients and Fibre
Beets are high in immune-boosting vitamin C, fibre, and essential minerals like potassium (essential for healthy nerve and muscle function) and manganese (which is good for your bones, liver, kidneys, and pancreas). Beets also contain the B vitamin folate, which helps reduce the risk of birth defects.
6. Detoxification Support
The betalin pigments in beets support your body’s Phase 2 detoxification process, which is when broken down toxins are bound to other molecules so they can be excreted from your body. Traditionally, beets are valued for their support in detoxification and helping to purify your blood and your liver.

So as you see, it is just what the doctor ordered!



Chocolate and Beetroot Brownie This is particularly delicious with a dollop of clotted cream. Riverford do a very good one.
 
250g dark chocolate, chopped
200g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
350g beetroot, about 2 medium sized
3 eggs
vanilla extract
200g golden caster sugar
50g cocoa powder,
50g rice flour (ground rice)
1 teaspoon baking powder
100g ground almonds

Preheat the oven to 180C. Wrap the beetroot in tin foil and put in the oven for about 45 minutes. They are cooked when a skewer inserts and removes very easily. Remove the tin foil and allow to cool for 10 minutes or so. Slip the skins off, whilst still warm. (Wear surgical gloves if you have some.) Meanwhile put the chocolate and butter in a large bowl and place it over a pan of simmering water, making sure the water doesn’t touch the base of the bowl. Leave to melt. Alternatively, heat in the microwave for 2 minutes.
Purée the cooked beetroot in a food processor. Add the eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla and sugar, and mix until smooth. Add the cocoa powder, rice flour, baking powder and ground almonds. Whiz up and then mix in the melted chocolate and butter.
Turn the oven down to 170C. Butter and then line with baking parchment a preferably rectangular tin, roughly 28 x 18cm. (I used a round one.) Pour in the mixture and place in the and bake for 30–35 minutes, until just firm to the touch. It’s important not to overcook brownies; a skewer inserted in the centre should come out only just clean. Leave to cool in the tin and then cut into squares.

Plenty

Usually the necessity of having to work for a living is nothing but a distraction for getting on with my blog. Recently however, I have been doing recipe testing and photography for Riverford, for their soon to be launched "Recipe Boxes".This is a new craze sweeping the nation when you receive, delivered to your door, three easy to follow recipes plus all the ingredients to cook your evening meals. 

I have to admit that I wasn't overwhelmed by the idea until I put them to the test. I like to think I am not the sort of girl who is not short on ideas or creativity when putting together a dinner for two, but I cannot tell you how pleasant it is, just sometime to not have to think about it. To know that everything I need is there at home waiting for me, no shopping, no planning and what turned out to be an even greater plus is that even Hugh, the other half, can cook them too. For the first time in years he actually managed to cook dinner on his own, not once but twice in a week. He found the recipe cards easy to follow and what with the unavoidable convenience of having all the ingredients weighed out, to hand, managed to knock up dinner with practically no fuss at all!  And you would not believe how pleased he was with himself.

In the meantime I needed to deal with my latest allotment glut. Due to my failure to sew few and often, to stagger my crops and in my total over enthusiasm to grow anything at all, I now am reaping the excess crops to mirror my initial excess impatience. I failed to thin my crops sufficiently and I am weighed down with Fennel, Chard and Spinach, all ready at the same time.

Lucky for me, guess what recipes I have been testing this week. Being seasonal, the recipes I am testing exactly match what I am harvesting and these two recipes for Indian Spiced Spinach & Chickpeas and Fennel & Chard Gratin could not have been more perfect for using up my surplus vegetables.  Now I can start dealing with the tomatoes!

Indian Spiced Spinach & Chickpeas with Coconut & Coriander Rice
prep & cook 40 mins, 

serves 2
1 onion (150g)
1 garlic clove (5g)
piece of ginger (25g)
fresh coriander (20g)
20g butter
150g long grain white rice
1 x 400ml tin coconut milk
salt
oil for frying eg sunflower or vegetable
200g spinach (or change to 150g chard)
1 x 400g tin chickpeas
½ teaspoon brown mustard seeds (2g)
½ teaspoon ground cumin (2g)
½ teaspoon garam masala (2g)
¼ teaspoon chilli powder (1g)
¼ teaspoon turmeric (1g)
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon (1g)
400g chopped tomatoes
1 lemon (150g)

Put the rice in a sieve and rinse well under the tap. Peel and chop the onion. Peel and finely chop the garlic. Peel the ginger and finely grate it. Wash the coriander leaves and leave them to dry. Melt the butter in a heavy-based saucepan. Add the rice and stir to coat the grains. Stir the coconut milk so it’s smooth and add to the rice with 150ml water. Season with a good pinch of salt. Bring to the boil, the lower the heat, cover and leave it cook on a bare simmer. Keep an eye on the pan, stirring it every now and then to stop it catching on the bottom. Add a little water or more of the coconut milk if it’s getting too dry. While the rice is cooking, heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large saucepan. Add the onion and gently fry without colouring for 6 minutes. While the onion is cooking, rinse the chickpeas well and leave to drain. Wash the spinach and remove any tough stalks. Roughly chop the leaves. Add the garlic, ginger, mustard seeds, cumin, garam masala, chilli powder, turmeric and cinnamon to the onion. Fry gently for 1 minute. Add the chopped tomatoes and a good pinch of salt to the onion. Bring up to a simmer. After the tomatoes have been simmering for 10 minutes, remove the rice from the heat and leave to steam, still covered. Continue cooking the tomatoes for another 5 minutes. Finely chop the coriander leaves. Uncover the tomatoes and add the drained chickpeas and spinach. Stir together and simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Taste and add more salt if needed. (It does look like a lot of spinach to start with, but it wilts down). Fluff up the rice with a fork. Squeeze in the juice from ½ the lemon and stir in the chopped coriander leaves. Serve with the chickpeas and spinach.

Fennel & Chard Gratin
prep & cook 45 mins
serves 2
2 fennel bulbs (500g)
olive Oil
salt & pepper
300g chard
2 garlic cloves
100ml white wine
1 whole nutmeg
125ml crème fraîche
fresh thyme
salt & pepper
25g wholemeal breadcrumbs
40g parmesan
1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 190C/180C fan assisted/gas mark 5. Put on a large pan of salted water to boil. While the oven is heating up, trim any large spiky tops of the fennel and remove any tough outer leaves. Cut the bulbs into thin wedges, still with the core intact to keep them together. If a few odd bits fall apart, don’t worry. If you have any feathery fronds on your fennel, keep those and add them when you stir in the cream. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large pan. Add the fennel and cook it very slowly, stirring every now and then. It will take about 20 minutes, until it’s starting to caramelize. Strip the chard leaves from their stalks. Wash both, then chop the stalks very finely. Peel and finely chop or crush the garlic. Once the water is boiling, plunge the chard leaves in and boil for 3 minutes. Get a large bowl of cold water ready. Drain the leaves and plunge into the bowl to refresh, then drain again. When cool enough to handle, roughly chop the leaves. After about 20 minutes or so, when the fennel starts to look a golden brown colour, add the chard stalks and garlic. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes. Add the wine and use a fine grater to grate a little of the nutmeg into the pan. Cook for 2 minutes. Stir in the cream, chard leaves and the thyme leaves. Season well with salt and pepper. Transfer to the baking/gratin dish. Put the breadcrumbs in a small bowl. Finely grate enough of the lemon zest over the bowl so you have approximately 1 teaspoon in there. Grate in the cheese too. Mix together then scatter over the fennel mixture. Transfer the dish to the oven (ideally keep the sweet potatoes on the same shelf but move them onto a lower shelf if you need to make room – you might just need to cook them a little longer) and bake for approximately 20-25 minutes, depending on your oven, until the gratin is golden on top.

Show Time!

The Allotment "Annual Show" is drawing near and even though I have grown nothing even half good enough to enter, I already feel a vague sense of panic. If I had know the format of "show enteries" I may have applied some purpose to my haphazard and ramshackle, random planting. For example the "Melville Cup" - Best Collection of Vegetables which requires three items from the following list

• THREE carrots with 75mm (3in) top foliage
• SIX French Beans with stalks attached
• THREE onions
• SIX peas with stalks attached
• THREE runner Beans with stalks attached
• SIX tomatoes with stalks attached, any variety

The only item I could get even close to is the tomatoes, although mine are still totally green and unlikely to ripen in time for next weekend.  My French beans are unpredictable, my peas are all finished and I am assuming that the emphasis on "stalks attached" is to prevent you from supplementing the odd category with a little produce from the local supermarket.

My chances with the next Class - "the collection of THREE distinct salad vegetables in groups of three" is no better. From the list

• Beetroot, cabbage, celeriac, celery, chicory, cucumber, endive, Florence fennel, kohl rabi, lettuce, onions, spring onion, potatoes, radishes, sweet peppers, tomatoes and turnips 

I have only managed to grow five of the named salad vegetables and the stress of worrying whether any of them, let alone three of them, may be in "show condition" on the day is really too much - I mean THREE cucumbers or THREE Florence fennel - which must be "even-sized, unblemished and undamaged" is just not going to happen - well, not this year anyway.

Even in the photography competition I fear I do not really have one photo which recapitulates "Life on the Plot" in its entirety.

Next I contemplated the "John Grey Cup for Home Produce" and my options from the list

Unless stated use your own recipe
ONE jar of marmalade, made in the past 12 months
ONE jar of chutney, made in the last 12 months
ONE jar of soft fruit jam, made in the last 12 monts
SIX pieces of shortbread
SIX rock cakes
Victoria sponge - using the following recipe and an 18cm (7inch) cake tin:
110g (4oz) butter or margarine
110g (4oz) caster sugar
110g (4oz) self-raising flour
2 eggs
3-4 drops vanilla essence
Jam for the filling

Although I do have a selection of home made jams, marmalades and chutneys on my shelves, I have failed to label any of them and have no idea which of them were made in the last 12 months. Shocked by my failure in this basic house keeping practice, I feel almost compelled to make amends by baking a perfect Victoria Sponge but I have no 7inch cake tin and besides, it is not exactley the most inspiring recipe. Surely no one has used margarine in a cake since the end of rationing after the Second World War!

So finally, the only option left to me is the Best Trug Display until I notice that not only is my trug the wrong size BUT the display must include vegetables, fruit, herbs and flowers and since I don't have any fruit (since rhubarb is classified as a vegetable) or flowers, I do not qualify! Never mind. Next year!

In the meantime I am proud to say that I have managed to grow something apart from courgettes. This is my Borlotti Bean harvest and I think there is actually enough for one small meal! These beans are delicious with so many things but especially fish (Red Mullet, Scallops or Sea Bass), Meat (Roast Lamb or Bacon) or with braised bitter green vegetables like Cicoria or dark leafy greens such as Cavalo Nero. (I am very proud to say that I grew the Cavalo Nero as well.) Here is one of my favorite recipes from The River Cafe.

Pan-fried Scallops, Borlotti Beans, Braised Cavalo Nero and Anchovy and Rosemary Sauce

Fresh beans will take about 45 minutes to cook, but you're more likely to get dried beans, they are cheap and very reliable to cook. However, they will need soaking for at least 12 hours.

For the beans:
300g dried Borlotti or cannellini beans, soaked in cold water for at least 12 hours
3 cloves garlic, peeled
A few sprigs fresh thyme
A sprig fresh rosemary
3 bay leaves
Extra-virgin olive oil

For the Scallops:
12 scallops

For the Cavalo Nero:
1 head Cavalo Nero
Couple of good glugs of Extra Virgin Olive oil
3 cloves of garlic 

If using dried beans then drain the soaked beans, then give them a good wash. Place them in a deep pot and cover them with cold water. Throw in the garlic, herb sprigs and bay leaves. Place the beans on the heat and slowly bring to the boil. Cover with a lid and simmer very gently for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on whether you're using fresh or dried, until soft and cooked nicely. Skim if necessary, topping up with boiling water from the kettle if you need to.

When the beans are cooked, drain them in a colander, reserving enough of the cooking water to cover them halfway up when put back in the pot. Remove the herbs from the beans. Mush up the garlic cloves and stir back into the beans. Season well with salt and pepper, and pour in 3 generous glugs of extra-virgin olive oil. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and reduce until slightly creamy and delicious.

Strip the Cavalo from its stems.  Blanch in a large pan of boiling salted water for about 3 minutes.  Remove and leave to cool preferably on a dry tea towel, spread out flat.  When cool, squeeze out the excess water with the tea towel.  Roughly chop.  Very thinly slice a few cloves of garlic and fry in a large frying pan with some good olive oil until light brown.  Add the Cavalo, stir well and cook for a further minute or two. Season with a little sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Season the Scallops with a little salt and freshly ground pepper. Fry them in a hot frying pan with a little sunflower oil.  Cook them on one side for a few minutes until toasted, golden brown and fry then turn them over, leave for a minute and turn off the frying-pan. Pile a little Cavalo Nero onto your plate, scatter with the warm home-cooked beans and a little of the juices and finally top with the scallops. Drizzle with Anchovy and Rosemary Sauce.

Anchovy and Rosemary Sauce

2 tbsp. fresh young rosemary leaves, very finely chopped
12 anchovy fillets
Juice of 1 lemon
150mls very good extra-virgin olive oil

Place rosemary leaves in a mortar and grind as finely as possible. Add anchovy fillets and grind to a paste. Add lemon juice, mix well, and then, stirring constantly, add oil, a few drops at a time. Transfer sauce to a small bowl.