One of the reasons for having a veg patch is being able to grow those things that you cannot get in the shops. I don’t do as much of this as I should do but this year I have grown some golden beetroot.

We had the first of it for lunch today. Each globe was sized halfway between a golf ball and a tennis ball. I picked four of them. 

They were boiled for half an hour or so, allowed to cool, peeled and sliced the thickness of a good pound coin and seasoned with salt, pepper, olive oil, some feta cheese and dill.

We ate them with a roast chicken stuffed with tarragon and cloves of elephant garlic (both from the garden), a broad bean salad and fried potatoes.

The chicken was good but could have come out of the oven 10 minutes earlier and I should have pushed the tarragon under its skin so that its full flavour could have soaked into the the bird rather than just putting it into its belly. That will be for next month.

In the meantime I have been making up plans for a birthday celebration later this year. These plans have not got much further than working over the logistics of taking a record player to Ahakista in the summer and what records I should take with me. On a good day I reckon I could limit the records to 25 – perhaps enough to fill a small record case.

1. Exile on Main St.

2. Snakes & ladders

3. Gardens where we feel secure

4. Blue Valentine

5. What’s Goin’ On

6. Party time

7. Parallel Lines

8. No. 1 Record & Radio City

9. Reckoning

10. Surprise, surprise, surprise

11. One Nation Under a Groove

12. At Fillmore East

So that’s 13 to go.  

And I am looking forward to cooking the two artichokes that arrived this afternoon!

Last year in October I planted out some bulbs of garlic in the veg patch.

Mending things and planting garlic

Yesterday, some nine months later, I was able to pull the fat bulbs from the ground.

They are a mixture of ordinary garlic that have come up tight and hard, and elephant garlic which are about the size of a small fist.

Most of it is tied up in bunches and hanging up in the greenhouse to dry but I have brought two bulbs into the kitchen to cook with and the house is now filled with the smell of it.

Last night I cooked Galen a Minute Steak from The Farmer’s market. It looked good enough to stay in for.

My mother occasionally worries about the stuff that I am able to find at the back of my fridge. it is lucky she is away on the moment as she would have gone into a complete spin over the well rotted cheese I found there today. It was a Durrus cheese bought in Ireland when we were there at Easter. It had come out for a party in the middle of May and had not been eaten. I thought it would keep in the basement for a few days but it had started to develop some flecks of blue mould so it went into the fridge.

I found it this morning and we had it for lunch.

I sliced off the blue rind of mould and once it had gone was left with a lump of creamy pale yellow cheese. This was sliced up as the grill went on to heat up.

Bread from Thursday’s delivery from the Bread Circle was sliced and toasted on one side. As they were done they turned over and the cheese laid out on top. Some of the bread had pieces of ham as well.

We ate it outside with Branston pickle and a glass of pale summer ale/