counting beans

So what do you do on a rainy Sunday at work after your second drenching of the day? Put all your wet gear in the drying room and head for the shed to do a bit of tidying up and sorting out. I started off by checking through the all the trays of stored potatoes, shallots and garlic that we have put away to replant next spring – my nose was telling me there were a few mouldy specimens lurking within. In the middle of all the spuds I came across a couple of trays of Martock beans, still in their pods and waiting to be processed. It’s the medieval broad bean that we grow in the garden of our Tudor longhouse – smaller and more modest than its modern descendants, more like a black-eyed pea or a small borlotto.

As I sat for a peaceful hour shucking them from their pods I was reminded of the book I am currently reading ‘Down to Earth – a guide to simple living’, by Rhonda Hetzel. She writes an inspirational blog of the same name, detailing her life with her husband and family in Queensland, Australia. She talks about mindfulness and finding pleasure in self-reliance and simple tasks – relearning the skills that our ancestors took for granted and practising them as a subversive act. Now I don’t know who my medieval ancestors were, but from my height and colouring I’d say they were Northern European (we grow our bones long in my family). At this time every year they would have been sitting around shucking beans, ready to store them safe and dry, away from mice and mould. With every satisfying rattly plunk of bean into bucket, there is a feeling of another morsel saved, another mouth fed.

My two little trays of beans yielded about 1.5 kilos of dry beans - that's 20 portions of food. I haven't tried cooking Martock beans before, so I decided it was time for a taste test. After a long soak - me, half an hour in a hot bath and the beans overnight in a bowl of cold water, I set about cooking them…

A little research* revealed that not only were these humble beans a staple in Tudor times, they were feeding Iron Age Brits, and are still highly prized in Middle Eastern cuisine. This what the Pharaohs were eating for breakfast. Field beans are still grown in Britain as part of an organic crop rotation - but the beans are mostly exported to Arab countries to be made into the Egyptian classic Ful Mesdames (the 'ful' is pronounced 'fool'). The recipe has many variations - but the essential ingredients seem to be cooked beans mashed with a little garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and cumin. Somewhere between hummus and refried beans it has a delicious earthy comfort that can be dressed up with any number of garnishes like harissa, crumbled feta or parsley. Here it is in its naked state - tonight it will be served with the traditional accompaniments of hard boiled eggs and flatbreads.

*In the course of my research I came across the fantastic Hodmedods which has everything you could wish to know about British grown pulses. There are also loads of recipes and an online shop that sells all kinds of exciting products like roasted peas with horseradish (wasabi peas), and salted roasted fava beans (habas fritas). You've got to love an iron age bar snack right?!?!

throwing the baby out with the bathwater

It's the 1st of September and this is my 100th post.

Is this significant?

(If you're me - not particularly).

Or does the theory of coincidence rely on selectively noticing stuff, 

because you happened to notice something else the other day?

(If you're me - probably).

But sometimes the cosmic latticework does start to twitch,

and things that seem unrelated start to come together.

Okay - so I know you're thinking 

'Enough already with the pickling!!!'

I promise this is it for a while….

(fridge now groaning with fermented delights)*

I genuinely started all this pickling malarkey from the basis of:

• grow cucumbers in hotbed at work every year
• end up with so many that you can't even give them away
• love brine pickled cukes
• am expected to research/experiment with traditional food growing/storage techniques
• pickle some - it's a no-brainer, right?

But as soon as I started reading up on what to do, I stumbled into the world of the new 'hottest thing in nutrition' - lacto-fermentation. This has nothing to do with dairy by the way, the 'lacto' bit refers to the lactobacillus which proliferate during the fermentation of the veggies. The finished products are alive, unlike the store bought ones, which have been pasteurised for shelf life at room temperature. This is pro-biotics but without the expensive branded yoghurt drinky things.

So far, so what?

I know - the last hottest thing was cupcakes and minted pea puree!

But there is a whole pile of research being done into links between gut health and immune responses - including out of control immune responses like allergies. Better brains than mine are applying themselves to this and I'm not saying that it's a retro fix if you've already got severe allergies. But it does seem to make sense that biodiversity is a good thing when it comes to your guts as well as your garden. Inclusion of bacteria rather than exclusion, especially in early life, is being preached…

Now, I've always been in favour of what I would regard as a normal amount of sluttishness in the housekeeping department, and am a long time believer in 'Eat dirt, it's good for you!' (Having said that, I've just been scrubbing the crap off from round the back of the kitchen taps - but that's mostly displacement activity because I'm supposed to be filling in my tax return). Nobody wants to live in squalor, but maybe in our quest for a hyper-clean, pasteurised life we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater…

...glass of bathwater anyone?

* lacto-fermented radishes might just be my new favourite thing in the world ever. All the deep savouriness of a good runny cheese combined with a delicate vegetable pickle. Umami, huh? Who knew?

pickle-tastic

update on batch 2 of my lacto-fermented brine pickles….

pickle-tastic!!!

4% brine

7 day ferment

zingy, tangy and suitably sour

They're in the fridge now

(making friends with Iestyn, the sourdough starter).

I'll spare you from updates on improvements in our gut health,

but I'm excited about their pro-biotic aliveness.

They'll be going in some salsa verde tonight;

we're having roast lamb.

Yummo!!!

Now then - what can i ferment next?

I'm thinking carrots and cauliflower...

pickle update

Update on the first batch of pickles:

Bleeeuurgh - wahaaay too salty!!!!

(But with good flavours developing underneath).

They had to go in the bin…

life's too short to de-salinate a pickle.

Undeterred, I had a quick trawl through the internet for advice about brine strength. 

The first batch was 40g salt to 500ml water - that's 8% brine. 

Batch two is about half that strength.

Watch this space….

pickled snozzcumbers

Last year I was going to pickle cucumbers…

and not just any old pickle,

proper old fashioned brine pickles.

Lacto-fermentation, hell yeah!

Last year I bought Alys Fowler's lovely book,

and read all about how to do it.

Last year the builders arrived at the end of July,

and ripped the kitchen off the back of the house.

But this year…

I'm doing it - look!!!

Cucumbers from the hotbed.

(Siân said they look like the BFG's snozzcumbers).

I love that half the aromatics are from the garden,

including tannin rich vine leaves for pickly crispness.

The previous owners of the house were Italian 

- Grazie Sr Sanna!

We get through loads of brine pickles in this house,

but the store bought ones are pasteurised,

which knocks out all their pro-biotic goodness.

It's Day 3 and there's definitely something happening…

Some bubble-age, a pickly tang in the air,

and a colour change from summer green to gentle olive.

There will be updates 

(for all you pickle fans out there).

xxx

plot to plate

High on the list of FAQs at the museum where I work must surely be ‘What do you do with all the vegetables from the cottage gardens?’ Ever since I have been there we have sold the produce on an ad hoc basis to visitors and staff, but the imbalance between quantity produced (small) and visitor numbers (high), means that we fail to address the public perception that we aren’t ‘doing anything with it’.  On a busy day in high summer 30 people might go home delighted with their bag of peas/punnet of gooseberries while the other 5,870 go home thinking it's a shame we don't sell the produce. Also I can categorically state that nobody has come for a family day out at the museum wanting to carry a 2 kilo cabbage around in the pushchair!

Earlier in the year a chance remark from the director of the museum, that the chef would like some herbs to use in the restaurant, set me thinking that maybe the time was right to try a Plot to Plate project where the produce gets used in the on-site restaurant. I realise this is not a fantastically original idea - lots of places do it already. But their visitor numbers are mostly small compared to ours, and a lot of them shut in the winter.  So after a bit of gentle pushing and shoving on my part, we're running it as a pilot scheme this year. 

I had a very productive walk around with the chef, good for both sides to think about the practicalities. The great news is that he's very interested in the things that have always been  impossible challenging to sell, like cabbages, turnips and prickly skinned cucumbers. Conversely, not so bothered about the peas and broad beans - too much prep so they buy frozen. He also made excited faces when I said things like 'quince', 'cooking pears' and 'kale', which was extremely gratifying.

It's been a gentle start, with a few kilos of rhubarb a week and some trays of mixed herbs

I've even got some new scales

and down on the farm our new chooky girls have started laying 

so it's time to get organised and start sending the eggs to the shop

the financial return on these items isn't huge

but it's part of a bigger story

and it feels like the right thing to do

and that feels good…

a beautiful mess

I worked for most of the Easter weekend so I am having this week off instead. Mr AP has taken a few days off as well so that we can hang out together at home and do a bit of house stuff. As usual we have long lists of tasks and great plans - some achieved, some can wait for another day. I think it's really important to make something - even if it's just a mess. So here's some stuff my clever husband made for me…

a key holder -

Mr Smurf looks after the keys to my old house that we still own and rent out,

Cartman looks after our spare house key.

A shelf for my cookbooks,

(middle class - moi?).

a woodshed - new and improved, 'you beaut' Version III,

with foreground herb garden - I've been busy too!

I cleaned out the fridge and made random veg soup,

(tasted okay but bore an unfortunate resemblance to sick after some ill advised blending).

So I made a loaf to cheer up proceedings...

..Best One I've Ever Made!

Also we've been talking for a while about going down to being a one car family.

Last week the transport gods intervened,

the big car turned itself into a bag of spanners on the way home from the Gower. 

A quick trip to 'we buy any wreck' yielded £300. 

The new transport strategy involves Mr AP having a more reliable motorbike,

(his old one looked cool but refused to start).

One very happy hubby,

(but the helmet squashes his face into a grumpy pout).

Tiny hint of my little blue Panda frame right

- or 'the car' as it's now known.

I'll let you know how it goes…

nesting

Got a week off work - yay!

After all the upheaval of building work, 

we finally got to the nice bit - nesting!

One of the plus sides of living with an (under control) hoarder

- is the stash available to create decorative schemes.

I can wave my arms about and say 

'Let's have…..'

Aunty Dilys' chairs 

(beautiful oak from Port Sunlight)

the massive green school cupboard that nearly killed the removal men

the broken sunburst clock

it's always 6:05 in our house

 (note to self - dusting!)

The Iwan Bala - 'Views for News'

there's even a colour scheme emerging

- but what we really need…

..is a defunct fire alarm!

We've been having guests round for dinner,

and using pretty things that have been boxed up for so long.

Putting bread in my favourite rush basket 

- and setting the table with vintage napkins.

Tomorrow we are off to Birmingham to see Youngest Stepson before he graduates.

I'm making beef and beer stew to portion up and freeze for him

 - brain food for a hungry student.

There's still plenty of work to do on the house.

But it's important to enjoy what we've managed to achieve along the way.

Must go - wallpaper to strip upstairs….  

i wonder...

I wonder if Uncle Toni is putting Rafael Nadal's socks on for him after his recent back injury crisis in the final of the Australian Open? And is Rafa griping at him through clenched teeth that he's sick of all of it, and maybe it's time to give up pro sport?

Probably not (I bet there's a dedicated sock support team).

I wonder all of this as I sit at home nursing another tweaked back, (popped a rib this time). I feel like I have been to the osteopath more times in the last year than in the previous ten put together. Today the clouds are clearing, and I am baking banana muffins while contemplating my options.

Is it time to give up pro sport horticulture?

What am I going to do for the next 15 years?

How do I get paid for what's between my earholes

- rather than my ability to dig a hole?

Due to the precarious funding situation currently facing the cultural sector in Wales, Mr Asparagus Pea and I regularly have the 'You could be a ship's captain, I could be a carpet fitter' conversation. This morning I did one of those slightly daft, online psychometric tests, as part of a more serious attempt to audit my transferrable skills.

Turns out I have the same 'personality type' as Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and Tony Blair.

So maybe world domination is not out of the question after all…

I don't know what the answer is - I'm mulling over a few ideas though.

In the meantime big thanks to Mr A-P for putting up with looking after me.

artworks:

me at the eisteddfod last year looking at Dinbych Saith

mr a-p in front of street art during Made in Roath 2013

a knife, a fork, a bottle and a cork...

On Friday I spent the morning with a group of volunteers planting wildflower plugs into a piece of grass by the big museum in town. The plan is to create an urban meadow, with lots of stuff that's good for bees - then install some beehives on the roof. It's not my project, but I've been helping out with a bit of hort support. It was lashing with rain while we were doing the planting, so I was suitably dressed in waterproofs and boots. Before driving back to my museum, I decided to remove all my wet stuff and change my boots. While doing the 'don't put your socked foot in a puddle' dance by the back of the car, I seemed to have managed to stuff up my back. By mid-afternoon I felt strangely in need of a hip replacement, and my drive home was mostly in third gear as I was having trouble lifting my leg up to depress the clutch pedal.

After an early morning distress call to the osteo on Saturday morning, I am mobile again but extremely tender.  So what do you do when you're in an analgesic haze, with an attention span of about 10 minutes, and a fuse of about 5 seconds?

photograph cutlery - obviously!

As part of the kitchen renovations we put in a dishwasher - I've never had one before. It soon became clear that six forks was not going to be enough in this brave new world of domestic appliances. So the highlight of this weekend was a short shuffle round the corner to our favourite junk/vintage store. There are always a few trays of assorted cutlery and kitchen bits there - I find them very poignant, little fragments of ladies' lives that remind me of my nana's house. We have spent so much money and made so many 'choices' as part of the building process, that it felt good to assemble a haphazard handful of useful items delivered by the random gods of house clearance.

While Mr Asparagus Pea was downstairs perusing the defunct electrical equipment (his all-time favourite thing), I was on my hands and knees (can't bend over), rifling through the kitchenalia.  In amongst all the usual mixed stuff I found a little wooden box containing these stylish beauties.

They're from the 'Studio' range by Viners of Sheffield, designed in the 60's by British silversmith, Gerald Benney. Very mid-century modern with their elegant lines and bark textured handles. Now I don't normally buy with a view to putting stuff on eBay (unlike my canny husband), but a girl only needs so many fish knives (or in my case none). So I might cover the cost of my cutlery haul by selling this set of six.

(I do plan to wash all of this before it goes near any food -

 but the floor was the most comfortable place to take the pictures!)