September harvest
Look what we did!!!
The absolute joys of having a garden and a poly-tunnel and relentless watering each day, are realised in September.
Here we have corn-on-the-cob (a favourite),
raspberries, beans, tomatoes and courgettes.
We are so blessed to have an orchard of trees which produce cooking apples, eating apples, plums, and quince.
Apple crumble we love and is easy to make, but i think
Steve's baked apples beat even a great apple crumble (i have put the recipe from 'BBC food recipes' for this at the bottom of this post).
But of all our harvest this year, this little beauty (and many more like it) caught our eye. What the heck have we grown?!
Isn't it beautiful?! It looks like a cup cake! It turns out they are from the squash family and this one is a Pattypan squash, unsurprisingly. It comes in yellow, green and white varieties
and you cook it much as you would a courgette.
I have decided i cannot cook this one, partly because i have now read they lose their flavour if they are any bigger than 3 inches (doh!) and partly because i think it will make a wonderful bonfire decoration on our tables in November.
Where is this year going?
Ingredients
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80g/3oz mixed dried exotic fruit, (such as mango, papaya, banana, fig, golden raisins), chopped
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55ml/2fl oz brandy
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30g/1oz soft light brown sugar
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½ tsp allspice
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100g/3½oz butter, plus extra for spreading
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6 eating apples, cored
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200g/7oz Greek yoghurt, to serve
Preparation method
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Preheat the oven to 150C/300F/Gas 2.
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Place the mixed dried fruit and the brandy into a bowl and leave to soak for at least two hours, but ideally overnight.
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After soaking, add the sugar, allspice and butter to the brandy-soaked fruit.
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Spoon the fruit mixture into the holes in the cored apples, pressing in to fill well and spread some more butter over the apples.
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Place the stuffed apples into an ovenproof dish, cover with aluminium foil and transfer to the oven to bake for 40 minutes.
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Remove the foil and cook 15-20 minutes more, until the apples are soft, but not collapsing.
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Place onto plates and serve with a dollop of Greek yoghurt.
Enjoy!