Tag: flowers

Pink Pelargonioum

The recent sunny weather has brought the pelargoniums into a second round of flowering.

And today was a pleasantly sunny day with good light for taking pictures in the garden.

So here’s shocking pink pelargoniums in all their glory.

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If only I could get them to grow in my window boxes but I don’t think they get enough sun to do well on our north east facing windowsills.

Beans or no beans

This year we planted borlotti and runner beans. 

They’ve survived the onslaught of snails this year, and improvement over last summer.

They’ve produced nice flowers.

Pale pink on the borlotti, scarlet on the runners.

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But few beans.

So far I’ve counted 10 borlotti pods and 1 runner pod.

From 10 plants.

I guess its a better return just than money in a bank account, maybe.

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So what shall I do with my 11 beans?

Hydrangea, blue and pink

We have several hydrangea plants in out garden. One is a white climbing version. But I’ve always liked the blue and pink ones the most.

Now I know that the colour of the flower heads is meant to be partially determined by the pH of the soil (blue in acidic, pink in alkaline).

So how on the same plant have I got blue and pink flower heads so close together. 

The best of both worlds perhaps.

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See the full gallery on Posterous

And quite intriguing. Explanations welcome.

Plates, flowers

Yesterday (and the day before) I did lots of tidying and sorting in the dining room.

And I made it all nice looking again instead of the junk heap it had become.

Here is one of the things that I think makes it look nice.

Feeling flowery in veggie heaven

Last week I took part in Dan of Food Urchin’s dinner blogging challenge (called ‘Where’s my pork chop?’). Basically I cooked him some dinner and in return I got, well these:


                  

There’s loads of potatoes, beans and courgettes hiding under the kale

 

I’m going to be blogging what I cooked for Dan in a separate post so check back for that in the next few days. Here I want to tell you some of what I’ve done with the veg so far.

Dan had been down to his allotment bright and early on the day of the swap and picked me a selection of goodies in their prime. In the bag were charlotte potatoes, curly kale, green (French) beans, courgettes and COURGETTE FLOWERS ?. I’d been hoping for some of the latter as I’ve only tried them once before and they aren’t that easy to buy. We’ve tried to grow our own courgettes this year but we aren’t having much success so far (the first lot of seeds didn’t germinate) so I was particularly delighted with the flowers.

Of course as everything had been picked only a few hours before I took the picture above the veg were absolutely bouncing with freshness. I was pretty pleased with my haul and it really demonstrated how lovely and fresh veg can be when their distance from the ground to the kitchen is short. I now have allotment envy.

So what I have I done with the veg so far?

Well as recommended by Dan I did some of the kale with oil and chilli. I actually steamed it first then gave it a quick sauté in rapeseed oil and chilli flakes. It was really good, the kale still had a little bit of crunch to it and the chilli complemented the slight bitterness that is inherent in brassicas like kale. I’ll definitely try it like this again and venture out into varying the spice choice as well.

 

 


The potatoes are just brilliant. One of my gripes about potatoes is that its not that easy to get ones that taste of anything much but when you do WOW instead of thinking potatoes taste kind of bland and nothingy you realise they have an earthy sweetness all of their own. Dan’s potatoes hit the mark on this – I assume its because they were straight from the ground. So far we’ve had them simply boiled and also crushed and cooked with some onion. Yum.

The beans and the courgettes we’ve steamed and tossed in a little oil or butter – again when things are this fresh they can shine on their own. And the flowers?             

 

                  

Well searching in cookbooks, on the internet and tweeting all seemed to point to stuffing the flowers, dipping in a tempura batter and deep-frying. Hmmmmm. I’ve never deep-fried anything; I don’t own a deep fat fryer, I too vividly recall close calls with chips pans in the 1970s (and that safety advert they used to run) to suddenly think that deep-frying them is the way to go. I also don’t want to experiment with a new technique on my precious courgette flowers – imagine if it goes wrong…..after a bit more thinking and searching I decide to just have them fresh and perky as they are in a salad but I do go with the flavours that many of the deep fried recipes suggest i.e. fresh soft cheese and herbs.                  



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I simply tore the flowers and tossed them with the rest of the salad (rocket, basil, lollo rosso, tomato, cucumber) before adding some of my favourite Buxlow Wonmil cheese and drizzling with a little oil. The flowers aren’t particularly strong in flavour but they add a both a different colour and texture to the salad. They are curiously soft yet slightly crunchy at the same time and a good addition.     I guess if I get more flowers I might dare to experiment with deep-frying but for now I’m happy I stuck to adding my flowers to a salad. (Dan – more flowers please….)!