bacon

100 days ago

Photo article from the Welsh hovel: harvesting the garlic and shallots

This is just the first tray. Another has now arrived in my office/food storage area. The garlic needs about four weeks to dry before I clean it again and string it up in the larder. The shallotts need about half that time before they are stored in an open tray in the kitchen. All in all there are about twenty cloves of garlic which the Mrs uses in her Indian cooking quite a bit and I use in salad dressings and when cooking prawns for the kids. So, I reckon, we have enough to tide us over until the spring garlic is ready. The shallots? Added to pheasant and bacon stew in the Autumn, what could be better?

442 days ago

Photo Article from the Greek Hovel - figs in blankets

I am not sure where my mad lefty pal L got this idea from, probably the Guardian. But as he came over for a swim and lunch yesterday he brought over warm figs in blankets – the blankets being bacon. Maybe he invented the recipe but he should claim credit for they were stunning.

667 days ago

Photo article from the Welsh Hovel - a home grown winter butternut squash and leek soup

After last night there is just one butternut squash from the summer left in my larder. But it is large enough to make two soups. The last twenty or so leeks are still left to be picked in my garden.

3844 days ago

The Bounty of Parsley & the Soup Solution

I left England in April with a well behaved herb garden. I returned to Bristol in May to find that all my plants had prospered but that the parsley was completely out of control. What had been a pleasant little plant was now more than 1 yard long and 1 yard wide. The true horror of its expansionism could only be appreciated from above. The poor lavender bush had almost been swamped.

Part one of my solution was to transfer the lavender bush to a patch vacated by a failed attempt to grow a raspberry bush. It had started to sprout but in my absence someone had snapped off its small branches and I feared the game was up. The lavender bush appreciated its move and is now thriving.

But still the parsley grew. By my calculations at current rates of growth it would have covered the entire garden by late August and by 2017 it would have headed off down the A4 and be approaching the outskirts of Bath. And so yesterday afternoon the Mrs was demanding a romantic supper and so I took the scissors to the parsley and put a quarter of it in the pot.

Parsley Soup