Stuffed Red Mustard Leaves – Recipe

Stuffed Red Mustard leaves with pinhead oats

Last year we sowed red mustard leaves, Brassica juncea ‘Osaka Purple’, in neat rows in our salad bed in the vegetable garden. This year it is coming up all over the vegetable gardens and beyond. The large floppy red leaves are mottled green and the flowers are yellow and typical of the cabbage family.

It grows easily and rapidly, their hot flavour is delicious when mixed with salad greens, but there is always too many of them. The majority of the plants end up going to seed and hence, their random and rapacious appearances grabbing land and spreading faster than Genghis Khan. So what to do with all these lovely leaves? The answer, perhaps it is stuffed leaves with pin head oats…

INGREDIENTS
- 12 large red mustard leaves
- 1 Onion, chopped finely
-1/2 Chilli chopped
- 1/2 cup of pinhead oats
- Dessert spoon of honey
- Handful of raisins
- 1/2 cup of water
- Oil for frying

METHOD
1. Remove the base of the leaf stalk, and put the leaves in a steamer to wilt the leaves. This makes them easier to roll. Place them face down on a flat surface.

2. Fry the onions until they are soft. Add the chopped chilli and the oats. Fry to toast the oats, stir continuously, about ten minutes.

3. Add the water, raisins and honey, and cook until the oats are softened slightly, about 15 mins.

4. Remove from heat and put a heaped dessert spoonful of the oat mixture on each leaf.

5. Roll the leaves around the mixture and fold in the ends.

6. Place the rolls into a Pyrex dish, you can stack them if you need to, cover them with water and place on the lid.

7. Put in a heated oven 190 Celcius and cook for an hour. Check occasionally to make sure the water does not boil away completely. Add a little if needed.

8. When done, remove from oven dish and transfer to a serving dish. Drizzle over some rapeseed oil.

Serve hot or cold.

Red Mustard- Brassica juncea “Osaka Purple’

Red Mustard Leves (centre) in rows in salad bed

Gardening with Children – Teaching The Teachers…

Tools and Equipment- Teacher Training Workshop, Castlebar, Co. Mayo, Ireland

One of my earliest memories from my childhood is being with my grandfather when he was digging potatoes in a garden in Wexford. He used to do some gardening work for a neighbour after he had finished his postman’s work for the day. I remember too, shifting wheel barrow loads of gravel with my dad and a neighbour to make a drive way when we w moved to out house in Swords, I was seven, probably more in the way of the two men shovelling than I was of any great assistance. But I did shovel gravel into the barrows and I felt like a man, working alongside the grown ups.

My mother had always dreamed of a garden, that is why we moved to a semi-detached cottage two miles from Swords village in north County Dublin in 1977. The front of the house looked over fields which were planted with barley or potatoes each summer, the fields stretched over the county as far as Naul. Often on an afternoon after school or on a summers day, I helped my parents in garden, digging, cutting long grass with a shears, picking strawberries, getting dirty and collecting ladybirds in a jar.

I am very fortunate to have such good memories from my childhood, of those days spent “working” in the garden, my parents doing what their parents had done with them, passing on the experience of working in the garden together. Unfortunately our lives have got a bit complicated and busier, priorities have changed and there has been a disconnection with our garden and our families. Many parents do not have the knowledge and experience to pass on to their children nor to experience such moments themselves and to pass on simple memories and experiences to their children.

Schools are increasingly taking on the role of teaching gardening to children. Perhaps it is time to recognaise that gardening is a necessary life skill, just as everyone should be able to tie their lace they should be able to grow food for themselves and also experience the beauty of nature; the scent of a bloom, the intricate beauty of pattern on flower petals or watch a butterfly flitter past. There is a healing in the soil, my grandfather always said that the answer is always in the soil. therapeutic both also fun and social.

During the week I gave two workshops to a group of teacher in Castlebar, Co. Mayo. It was a great experience and they learnt a lot too. On the first evening we discussed ways of integrating gardening into the school day; filling a simple vase with flowers or branches from the garden, the way to school or children’s garden. Even a bare branch of a birch tree has a beauty in winter. The world of flowers is filled with stories to enthrall children; Fuchsia magellanica, from the exotic continent of South America, the explorer magellan and his exploits! Not only in the classroom, parents can do this at home too.

I told a story of the seed, told in such a way to create a feeling for a seed that a seed is a living thing that aspires to grow and needs our care.Then we dissected the seed so that the teachers could see what a seed is from a scientific perspective, not that it would be doe by the children. We made newspaper pots and sowed nasturtium seeds. School gardens could be beautiful places for learning and social interaction, not just a collection of raised beds.

On the second evening we made a raised bed outside. Some people used a powered screw driver and a saw for the first time. We dug the soil, filled the bed with top soil, planted plants. I finished the workshop with a hugely positive feeling, that there will be more children enjoying gardening in their school days.

Teacher Training Workshop, Castlebar, Co. Mayo, Ireland

Constructing the raised bed

Materials:

• 3 x 2.4m decking timber 28mm x 130mm
• 1x 2.4m garden stake  50mm
• wood screws (6×70) approx 14 screws

Tools

• Powered screw driver with philips no.2 bit
• Rubber or wooden mallet
• wood saw
• spade
• shovel
• wheel barrow
• measuring tape
• bamboo canes
• builders line or twine

Raised beds offer a number of advantages including increased periods of workability as you do not need to walk on the soil in order to cultivate and plant. Raising the beds can also improve drainage, increase the depth of the topsoil and make working easier as you dont have to bend as far.

Old scaffolding planks can be used instead of treated timber, they have the advantage of being untreated and hard woods and the fact that they are being recycled is a good environmental plus. They can also be half the price. The downside is that they are thicker and harder to get the screws in to and they are wider, therefore more soil will be needed in order to fill the beds. Getting good quality topsoil, cheaply can be difficult.

Position beds in sunny situations, shelter from winds is best for vegetable crops. Avoid over hanging branches of established trees. Construct the beds no wider than 1.2m to ensure that the centres of the beds can be reached from the sides. In theory the beds can be as long as you want, but in practice if the beds are too long, gardeners end up taking short cuts across the beds, this means compacting the soil and in a school situation it creates an unnecessary hazard. 2.4 metre beds are a good size.

Start with cutting one of the decking boards in half, this will give you two ends for the bed.

Mark out the area for the beds using twine and bamboo canes. If laying out a number of beds in a geometric pattern ensure that the beds are square, use pythagoras theorem for getting the corners square and making sure adjacent beds are parallel.

Where grass is present the sod (top 5cm of soil can be removed. this can be buried under the topsoil when digging the or placed in a compost heap.

Place the sides and ends of the beds in position and align the corners. Put two scres from the sides into the end boars and two from the end boards into the sides at each corner.

Ciaran hammering in a post - Teacher Training Workshop, Castlebar, Co. Mayo, Ireland

Check that corners are square and then hammer in posts at each corner and on the sides inside the boards half way. Use a wooden or rubber mallet. The posts should go into the soil as much as the height of the sides. Cut the 2.4 m stake into required lengths for this purpose.

Now that the beds have been constructed, it is time to fill them. It always surprises me just how much soil it takes to fill beds. As the beds are being filled, tread over the soil to settle it, natural settlement will occur anyway, but this reduces it.  As you fill in the soil, look out for weed roots and stones which need to be removed.

Teachers around the newly constructed raised bed - Teacher Training Workshop

Some things to watch out for when building beds for schools. Avoid sharp edges on the beds. Look out for any sharp materials that may be in topsoil, things like glass pieces, bits of metal.

Note: 1.2m beds are quite good for adults, perhaps narrower beds of 1 metre would be more suited for young children.

Ciaran and the teachers, teacher training Workshop, Castlebar, Co. Mayo, Ireland

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Planting Potatoes in Plastic Bags

Harvesting New Potatoes

Early potato tubers are usually chitted before being planted outside. This involves placing the tubers in a well lit, frost free place. The shoots develop from the eyes of the tuber and will then be planted outside when the soil has warmed to 6° Celcius.

Early varieties take between 75 – 90 days to mature. Harvesting can start in early summer. Irish people use St Patrick’s Day, 17th March, as the date by which you must have the early potatoes planted.

Not everyone has space for planting potatoes, in fact not everyone has a garden. However, just about everyone can enjoy harvesting a few of their home grown potatoes in summer using old plastic compost bags for planting. To obtain an earlier crop, tubers can be planted in a tunnel or glasshouse. Tubs or barrels can also be used. I decided to re-use a couple of old plastic compost bags. Here is what I did:

Step 1: I turned the bags inside out to reveal their dark side which attracts more heat, and looks nicer. I rolled down the bag so as to allow light for the shoots when they grow. Into the base of the bags I made a number of slits to allow drainage.

PLANTING POTATOES IN BAGS- 10 CM LAYER OF COMPOST IN BAGS

Step 2: From our compost heap I got a wheel barrow of lovely dark compost.  A 10cm (4 inches) layer was shoveled into the bags and then firmed with my hands.

PLANTING POTATOES IN BAGS- COVERING TUBERS

Step 3: The tubers I placed on the compost and then covered with a further 10cm (4 inches) of the good stuff, and firmed. Then the compost was watered.

PLANTING POTATOES IN BAGS- TUBERS PLACED ON COMPOST

Aftercare: When the stems grow to 15cm (6inches), more compost will be added, to a depth of 10cm (4 inches). As the plants grow the sides of the bags are unrolled to allow for greater depth. I will continue to add more compost as the stems grow until it is 5cm (2 inches) below the top of the bag. The potatoes will need to be well watered. They need a weekly feed of liquid seaweed fertilizer to promote growth. When the plants start to flower the crop will be ready to harvest.  As a true Irish man I can’t wait to cook the first potatoes; steamed and then eaten with melted butter and some chopped chives from the garden, yum!

• There is nothing quite like your own compost from the garden when growing vegetables. Learn about making compost on my other blog Ciaran’s Gardening Blog and download an information sheet on Home Garden Composting.

• Listen to a podcast of “In The Garden with Ciaran Burke” – Episode 13

• WATCH THE YOUTUBE VIDEO OF THE NEW GROWTH PROJECT HORTICULTURE COURSE. This is a free training course that we are running in our own garden in Co. Mayo, Ireland. For more info: THE GARDEN SCHOOL Each week we make a video of what the students are doing on the course.

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Gaultheria berries, some are good to eat

Gaultheria berries with yogurt

Some G. mucronata berries are quite tasty with some home made yogurt and brown sugar! Or enjoy them as a nice treat when in the garden. It is great to be able to pick a handful of berries and munch them while taking a break from weeding in the garden.

The small, narrow, dark evergreen foliage is densely packed along the stems, each little leaf ending with a short spine.  Masses of small white nodding flowers are produced in May, creating a cloud of soft white over the branches. In winter plump berries replace flowers, decorating pots and borders.

The berries remain on the plant for such a long time, already on show in September they will be looking good right through winter until late spring. Like marbles, they clutter the stems, the colour range from white to mulberry-purple. Named cultivars are sometimes offered for sale but more usually they are just sold incorrectly labelled as pernettya.

Gaultheria mucronata -red

The flowers of P. mucronata are dioecious, meaning that male and female flowers are borne on different plants. This is important to know if you expect to have berries on your plants.

One male plant should be sufficient for a group of  about 8 female plants. A low growing male cultivar called ‘Thymifolia’ is a good choice as a pollinator especially where a neater growth habit is favoured. There is a hermaphrodite plant which produces bright carmine-red berries called ‘Bell’s Seedling’ which is an Irish cultivar. One solitary plant can produce berries without the need for the company of a pollinator.

The edibility of Gaultheria mucronata berries is a subject clouded in confusion, with some texts stating that all members of the genus have poisonous berries.  I have eaten them, enjoyed them, and survived!

It is known that South American natives have valued the berries for their taste and health benefits.  The texture of the flesh is somewhat watery and the skin dryish, but it is not unpleasant at all. Recently I was tasting some of the berries in our garden, a friend was with me and we noticed that berries from one bush in particular had a far stronger and better taste than the others, while another had no taste at all. Selection of individuals for their flavour is something that could be worked on. What is quite amazing is how long the fruits stay and remain good quality onthe plants, from autumn until now in March.

Gaultheria mucronata - deep pink

Let the fruit ripen well so that the flesh is soft when gently squeezed. Be careful though, plants offered for sale are usually grown as ornamentals and not grown as fruit plants. Due to this fact there may be insecticides incorporated with the compost. Whether or not the plants have been treated with pesticides should be confirmed first before tasting the berries.

G. mucronata which hails from Chile and Argentina, was relatively unknown to gardeners from its introduction in the 1830s until plants raised by the Co. Down nurseryman T.Davis of Hillsborough were exhibited in London in 1882 and attracted attention. He showed plants which he had raised and selected over the previous 30 years. Sadly most of these cultivars are probably lost to gardeners of today but there are many others to choose from. They require acid soil, they are ideal for ground cover or can make attractive outdoor pot plants.

This text is an extract from an article (edible ornamental berries)  in the current issue of Organic Matters, the magazine of IOFGA (Irish Organic Farmers and Growers Association) available in news agents countrywide.

Gaultheria mucronata -white

“In The Garden With Ciaran Burke” weekly radio feature in CRC FM

 

Ciaran Burke in the CRC FM Studio

Each week I join Johnny Oosten on CRC Fm in Castlebar Co. Mayo to chat about gardening, plants and growing your own food. This week we were talking about gorse bushes, Ulex europeaus, flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum and growing peaches. I also did a quick demonstration for Johnny of making a pot from a sheet of neswpaper. You can listen live each week at about 12.05pm on Fridays online at CRCFM

listen to the podcast by clicking the link below:

In the Garden With Ciaran Burke No.11

Information about growing peaches on The Garden School Website

More about gorse and flowering currants on my other BLOG

Peach Blossom

Sea buckthorn berries make good jam!

Top Fruit, Soft Fruit and Strange Fruit

I was getting ready to do a talk to the North Mayo Garden Club today, and as I was going through my presentation I remembered that I had a few pots of delicious apple and sea buckthorn jam left. Sea buckthorn berries are a super health food; one small berry can have a Vitamin C content equal to that of six oranges, packed with atioxidants and a number of omega oils, it is a wonder fruit. It is also a wondeful tasting berry. Eaten straight from the bush it may be a bit sharp for many peoples’ tastes, but blended with juices or as an ingredient in cooking it is delicious, unique and colourful.

Sea Buckthorn berries - Hippophae rhamnoides

The first of our bushes that we planted gave us a good crop this year, or to be more specific the female plant cropped well. We originally planted two varieties, Rudolph, a male to pollinate, and Raisa a female to fruit, both purchased in Finland while on holidays three years ago. Last year we had a few berries but this year we have lots in the freezer and enough to make jam. We have since planted five more female varieties, we are sure Rudolph will be up to the job, and are looking forward to great crops in the coming years.

To make the flavour of this year’s berries go further, I  mixed the berries with apple to make jam. It turned out great, it is one of my favourite jams, sea buckthorns are one of my favourite berries. Below is the recipe that I used for the jam. I am going to take  a jar with me to my talk tonight so that people can have a taste of sea buckthorn, for most it will probably be their first time. Perhaps some gardeners might be inspired to grow these great plants.

Apple and Sea Buckthorn Jam

Jar of home made Apple and Sea buckthorn Jam

900ml of sea buckthorn berries

3 litres of peeled and chopped desert apples

1 Kg of sugar

300 ml of water

1. Cook the berries, water and apples over a low heat for about fifteen minutes or until the apple is soft.

2. Slowly add the sugar, stirring well to ensure the fruit dissolves.

3. Turn heat up and cook the jam for about fifteen or twenty minutes.

4. Spoon the jam into sterilized glass jars and tighten lids immediately. (Wash used jam jars with soapy water, then dry off and place in cold oven an heat to 100 degrees celcius).

North Mayo Garden Club, talk tonight Tuesday 8th of November- Top Fruit, Soft Fruit and Strange Fruit- a talk by Ciaran Burke. Venue Merry Monk, Killala Road, Ballina, Co. Mayo, Ireland. 8 pm.

Talk will also be given to Claregalway  GIY on Wednesday 23rd November at Arches Hotel, Claregalway, Co. Galway at 8 pm.

Snails for dinner! L’Escargot With Onion and Pinhead Oatmeal

Snails in galic butter served on fried pinhead oats and onion

Snails, slime trails and munched leaves, hosta holes and devoured delphiniums, the ever-present threat, the garden terrorists. Innocent plant species, fresh from the secure haven of the nursery are easy targets for these ruthless slimy beings.

How often have we gardeners gone to our gardens full of enthusiasm and optimism only to have our day ruined by the murder scene of slime tracks, the evidence of the crime orgy of leaf munching perpetrated by these garden thugs?  Newly planted vegetables raised with care , coaxed from from their embryonic slumber by our efforts, these babies of ours are destroyed while we sleep. Some of my lettuce plants were devoured by the nocturnal activity of snails. It was time for revenge, to fight fire with fire, an eye for an eye. I decided to eat those that ate my plants!

Snails and slugs are molluscs, a zoological family that includes sea animals such as squid and octopus. The common garden snail with the large brown swirling patterned shell is Helix aspera and in common with octopus and squid it is quite a delicacy in some European countries; l’escargot. The idea of eating snails seems to turn most Irish people green, but lets face it, it not any worse than eating oysters, at least you cook snails. Oysters enjoy a place of privilege in the culinary world, yet what could be more natural than eating snails from the garden; home grown food,  raised in an organic garden, zero carbon footprint and no food miles.

Snail farm otherwise known as "death row"

In May I decided to rear my first meat from our garden. Hanna and I went out to the garden in the evening and looking down amongst the leaves of herbaceous perennials such as Libertia grandiflora, Kniphofia, red hot pokers and under the foliage of wall trained climbers and lifting flat stones we gathered over the course of three evenings twenty one nice big specimens of garden snails.

Carefully they were gathered, the gardeners’ instinct to crush the enemy was subdued and with tenderness they were carried to their temporary residence of white and red; a recycled bucket which once held mayonnaise. Into its red lid numerous ventilation holes were made with a knife. Cleaned thoroughly two lids from jam jars provided the buffet for the new occupants. One carried cool clear water, the other, bran flakes. We had tried feeding snails on other cereals, oats, whole grain spelt flour, but wheat bran is their favourite.

Snails in bucket

When preparing snails for eating, they require about seven to ten days of feeding to clear out grit from their digestive systems followed by forty eight hours of water only. The purging period is essential in order to clear their digestive systems; you never know what else they have been eating. Throughout this period the bucket was kept in our shed, cool, dry and dark. After a few days I placed a good pinch of calcium carbonate, ground limestone, for the snails to eat. This helps prevent their shells from going soft and breaking.

Every evening the snails were removed for cleaning of the accommodation. Most of the snails were either eating from the food or hanging upside down on the inside of the lid. They were removed and placed in another bucket while I wiped out their excreta and washed the box. Some of the snails were sometimes a bit messy so they also got a quick wash. Luckily they are not fast movers and although some wake up they did not seem in a hurry to rush away, perhaps they were getting used to the convenience food and water supplies of their bucket home, little did they know that their plastic home was not a holiday village, but death row. Each day though they were treated with care, fed and supplied with clean water and their quarters cleaned and their welfare checked, it was no Guantanamo, their rights were respected. After their ten-day detention period including the 48 hours fasting had finished it was time for them to be cooked.

Snails in water with onion and herbs from the garden

I had help to prepare them for the table; Hanna’s brother Mika and his partner Heidi were visiting from Helsinki. Both are enthusiastic foodies and were keen to take part in our meal of vengeance.

Cooking garden snails

1. Remove the snails from the bucket and wash each snail under cold running water
2. Drop the snails into boiling water and remove after 5 minutes. Some froth is produced as mucus is released from the snails’ bodies.
3. The snails are removed from their shells using small forks. This is easy to do; a quick flick of the wrist imparts the swirled flesh from the shell.
4. The snails release a little green mucus, and may release more. To remove mucus the snail flesh is washed a number of times in diluted vinegar. Repeat until no more mucus is released.
5. Next cook the snails in stock or with water with herbs, there are many variations of this, we used fresh herbs from the garden including oregano, lovage and parsley and added some chopped onion to the water seasoned with salt and ground black pepper.
6. After 30 minutes the snails were removed and then fried in butter with garlic and parsley.

Mika and Ciaran with the snails

Snail meat

We served the snails on a bed of pinhead oatmeal sautéed with friend onion. The snails were judges to be a great success, both Mika and Heidi enjoyed them, and I did too. While in Ireland they had both dined in some really fine restaurants but Heidi reckoned that the culinary highlight of their trip to Ireland was the preparation and eating of the snails. They were very tasty, in fact, never has revenge for garden damage tasted so good.

Heidi enjoying our home grown l'escargot

Heidi writes a blog about cakes (in Finnish) LINK

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ELDERFLOWER AND APPLE JAM- A DELICIOUS TASTE OF SUMMER

ELDERFLOWER AND APPLE JAM IN BOWL AND JAR

Despite the less than summery weather over the last while I do feel that summer has indeed arrived. The reason, the ederflowers are in blossom. Sambucus nigra, common elder, is a native shrub/small tree to Ireland and all throughout the countryside its creamy white flat heads are to be seen. Apart from its medicinal uses of which there are many, the flowers and fruits are a great source of food and tastiness.

ELDERFLOWERS WASHED AND IN A BOWL

Elder is a relatively un-used plant in modern day Ireland, which is a shame. In recent years there has been a growing fondnes for elderflower cordial, which is delicious and very easy to make. On Friday evening I made a litre of cordial which will be ready to use in a few days time.  -To see previous blog on how to make elderflower cordial click on the link near the bottom of the page.

I love the clear fresh taste of elder flower and have been of the opinion that there must be more ways to capture its taste apart from making cordial. On Saturday we had elderflower pancakes which were delicious. I will post a blog on how to make them soon. But to enjoy the flavour of elderflowers every morning would be a treat, a great way to exercise the taste buds at the start of each day. So my mind turned to jam, not literally, but thinking of how I could capture the uniqueness of the elderflower flavour in a fruit spread, free of sugar. This resulted is two jams, Strawberry & Elderflower and Elderflower & Apple.

POTS OF STRAWBERRY AND ELDERFLOWER JAM

The first of the two jams I made was Strawberry and Elderflower which is very tasty, a great success. The sweetness of the strawberry seduces your tounge with sweetness then the elder flower tingles it. I made a small batch with strawberries purchased from the farmer’s market in Boyle, Co. Roscommon. But, I wanted more elderflower, and decided to try making a jam with apple. The result is fabulous, perhaps my favourite jam ever! So here are the two recipes. I like to make sugar free jams. Instead of adding sugar I use apple juice concentrate. Although it works out more expensive I do like to eat lots of jam, so it is healthier.

When making jams have clean jars ready. We use old jam jars, washed in hot soapy water then dried thoroughly. Place in a cool oven and heat to 100 degrees Celcius, about twenty minutes at his temperature should sufficiently sterize the jars.

STRAWBERRY AND ELDERFLOWER JAM (SUGAR FREE)

INGREDIENTS:

800g of strawnerries with green parts removed, large fruits were cut into halves.

8 heads of elderflowers.

360 ml of apple fruit juice concentrate

2 apples, peeled and chopped

Juice of one lemon.

STRAWBERRIES TOPPED AND ON KITCHEN SCALES

METHOD:

1. Tie the flowerheads from the elder into some muslin.
2. Cook chopped apple in the apple juice concentrate with the lemon juice and the elderflowers in the muslin bag until the apple pieces are soft.  (about 10-15 minutes) Keep the heat low after it has started to bubble.
3. Add the strawberries and continue cooking at a low heat until the fruit is soft. (about 20 minutes). Stir to make sure fruit does not stick or jam burn
4. Mash up some of the strawberries to make a pulp, leave soft entire fruit.
5. Turn up the heat so that the jam really bubbles. Stir occassionally.
6. When jam has reduced and when you move a wooden spoon across the base of the pot and you hear a good sizzle, then the jam is ready.
7. Spoon the jam into the jars, be careful, the jam is very hot, wear oven gloves. Clean the outside of the jars to remove any jam that you have spilled, use a clean damp cloth.
8. Place lids on immediatley.

WASHED ELDERFLOWERS ON MUSLIN CLOTH

STRAWBERRY JAM COOKING IN SAUCEPAN

We have just used the last of the jam we made last october and they have kept well using this method.

ELDERFLOWER AND APPLE JAM (SUGAR FREE)– Possibly the tastiest jam in the world!!!

ELDERFLOWER AND APLE JAM ON BREAD WITH JARS AND GLASS BOWL

INGREDIENTS:

1      1.1Kg peeled and cored dessert apples (the weight after peeling and coring). Chop into small pieces.

2      11 heads of elderflowers

3      2 x 360ml bottle of apple juice concentrate

4      juice of one lemon

MUSLIN CLOTH WITH ELDERFLOWERS AND LEMON PIPS IN APPLE CONCENTRATE COOKING

METHOD:

1      Place the elderflowers in a muslin cloth and tie to make a bag.

2      Put all the ingredients into a saucepan. Cook on a low heat until the apples are soft (15-20 Minutes). Make sure that the muslin cloth containing the elderflower is in the liquid.

3      Remove from the heat and using a hand blender, blend the apples until they are pulp.

4      Return to the cooker and cook on a higher heat. The jam will be ready in about 10 – 15 minutes.

5      Spoon into sterlized jars and cover jars with lids straight away.

ELDER FLOWER AND APPLE JAM ON BREAD

Elderflower and apple jam is delicious on freash beread or toast. Also great with some yougurt too. Even if the summer weather does not live up to expectations, elderflower will always be a summer treat in June.

MAKE ELDERFLOWER CORDIAL (LINK) (from my other blog on www.ciaranburke.ie)

 

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Facebook friend offers free weedkiller for my talk

Tonight I am doing a talk for the Oranmore GIY (Grow Your Own) Group. The title of the talk is “Top Fruit, Soft Fruit and Strange Fruit”. I announced the talk on my Facebook page and then I got an email from a Facebook friend who I have never met, Oisin from Irish Organic Weedkiller. He kindly made the offer of some free samples of his new innovative product made from acetic acid that kills weeds quickly and is 100% biodegradable.

I have never used the product but I will give it a try. I have two boxes of the ready to use bottles to give away at the talk that takes place in Oranmore Public Library this evening at 6.30pm.

Thanks Oisin for the gesture.

http://www.owk.

http://www.giyireland.com/

Saturday at Cashel House Gardening Course

TABLES SET FOR BREAKFAST

The sun has been shining all day. The weather has been great for us at Cashel House, as usual. There has been days here in the past where we have had coffee and scones laden with home made jam and whipped cream while sitting on the front lawn and basking in sunshine while the rest of the country was under a deluge. Not just once that it has happened but many times. We would have been sitting at the end of an enjoyable day and people would phone home to various parts of the country and get  terrible weather reports while we sat in the sun. There really is something special about Cashel in Connemara.

The ambiance is of laid back elegance, a refinement from a past age. One would not be surprised to meet Ms Marple sipping tea by the fireplace or see Hercule Poirot swinging his walking stick after a vigorous walk through the fine gardens.We woke this morning as the light filled the garden and took a stroll outside. The scent from the Clematic armandii rambling on the front wall was starting to fill the sun filled garden. The white tulips shook gently in the breeze and the cockrel crowed to greet the day.

CLEMATIS ARMANDII FLOWERING ON FRONT OF CASHEL HOUSE

FRONT LAWN WITH WHITE TULIPS THIS MORNING

FRONT DOOR TO THE HOTEL

We had breakfast with the early risers ffrom the garden group. The breakfast menu is superb. Not many hotels can offer trout or kippers or possibly liver for breakfast. I stuck with srambled egg and locally sourced bacon and sausages and enjoyed freshly squeezed orange juice. Afterwards I stil found room to enjoy a slice of raisin bread with home made raspberry jam.

BREAKFAST MENU

After breakfast I set up classroom in the wooden building, admiring the floriferous Kerria japonica ‘Flore Plena’ as I unloaded pots compost, plants and other paraphernalia from the car. When the group had gathered we started the day with a slide presentation before coffee break which was followed by a walk in the garden, admiring magnolia and camellia trees and shrubs on the way. next was lunch, I enjoyed a dressed sorrel salad with parmesan shavings, Irish stew with garlic toastlets and delicious sauteed cabbage flavoured with caraway seeds. This was followed by strawberries and crushed merengue with whipped cream. Finely chopped mint leaves were mixed through the cream giving this dish an extra bit of delight.

CLEMATIS ARMANDII FLOWERS

After lunch we had a practical session where we sowed seed including Runner Bean ‘Painted Lady and Nasturtium ‘Tom Thumb’. Pricked out seedlings of Lettuce  ’Cerbiatta’ and made pots from newspaper. We did some soil pH testing and took a walk up to the vegetable garden and nibbled on sorrel leaves, sniffed on lovage and I described how to prune apple trees. By 5 o’clock  all were ready for a cup of tea or coffee which we took by the fire in the drawing room and indulged in scones with jam and cream.

SOME OF THE GARDEN CLASS POTTING

POTTING UP THE SEEDLING IN A NEWSPAPER POT

Next we meet for a drink before dinner, more friendly chat, lots of laughter and then face the hard work of choosing from tonight’s great menu.  The garden course is such good value, all meals are included and the full menu is offered. One thing I know for sure, I am having rhubarb pie for dessert.Its seriously good rhubarb pie in Cashel House!

 

DINNER MENU SATURDAY 2ND APRIL 2011

INFORMATION ABOUT GARDENING COURSES IN CASHEL HOUSE HOTEL

 

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