Chutney Making event at Scarcroft Learning Centre

The Planet South Bank & Edible York plot at St Clements grew a bucket-full of green tomatoes, so they are going to make chutney from them.

All are welcome to come along for chutney tips to help with any Green Tomato Glut you might be facing from your own harvests.

The Chutney Making Event is this Saturday 24th September, at the Scarcroft Learning Centre, starting at 10am.

The Scarcroft Learning Centre is located at Scarcroft School at the corner of the school playground and can be accessed from Nunthorpe Road.

This is a FREE event and all are welcome. Planet South Bank & Edible York would love to have any volunteers to help – and to take away some chutney at the end!

End of Summer Feast 2012

Come along to the Scarcroft and District Allotment Association End of Summer Feast

Scarcroft Allotments - Sunday 4th September

12:30 till 15:00

Everybody is welcome, and we hope you all enjoy sharing the benefits of a healthy 2012 harvest.

Bring your own food and drink, made from your own produce, to share on what we hope will be a fun day for all.

You may also want to bring some folding chairs (if you don't have far to carry them!), or even some instruments if you want to provide a home-made soundtrack to go with the home-made food on offer.

The feast will be at the Alotment Shop on Scarcroft Allotments, so there will be some shelter available if the weather is a little less that bright.

 Attractions and Distractions will include:

Plot on a Plate, show off the variety of your own personal harvest

Vegetable Monsters, creative fun for kids (and grown ups)

Apple Bobbing

Jam and Chutney swap

And more...

Most of all, this will be a chance for Plot Holders and Home Growers to get together to discuss the ups and downs of another year of gardening, to swap tips as well as treats and to catch up with one another.

Please come along to join the fun and to share in what promises to be a lovely afternoon of food and drink and harvest festivities.

Sweet Chilli Jam

Another good recipe to do with your produce at this time of year.

Thanks Eric Leadley for this one.

How courgettes punish you if you go on holiday...

Turn your back for a moment and the marrows will be upon you.  The barrow was needed to get this lot home.

Here's 2 courgette recipes I picked up recently.

Courgette and Feta Soup (as told me by Ruth Hodgins)

• onions, garlic, courgette, veg stock and feta
• cook the onions until translucent, add garlic, add cubed courgettes, add veg stock, cook til courgettes soft then crumble in feta. Easy and delicious

Courgette Tea Cake

• 1 egg, 125 ml sunflower oil, 175g courgettes (grated), 150g wholemeal flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda, 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 175g sugar, 75g sultanas, 75g walnuts
• Preheat oven to 180 C / gas mark 4
• grease and line a loaf tin
• beat egg and sunflower oil together
• grate courgettes
• add flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, spices, sugar,sultanas and walnuts to courgettes and mix
• mix in egg and oil mix and pour into tin
• cook for 1 hour and test with a skewer to check it is cooked (if it comes out clean it is).

Beetroot Fritters

Member's Recipes:  Beetroot fritters

There’s so much more you can do with beetroot rather than pickle it or make soup. These beetroot fritters are delicious hot or eaten cold the following day.

Ingredients

• ½ cup of grated beetroot
• ½ a cup of grated carrot
• 10 capers, drained (or several chopped olives, sun dried tomatoes, or use 1 tspn salt)
• 1 Tbsp grated parmesan
• 1 Tbsp cornflour, (or any flour like chickpea flour, brown rice flour)
• 1 large egg
• Oil for frying

Method
Heat oil in frying pan.  Mix all other ingredients together in a bowl and spoon it into the pan to make four fritters.  Fry until golden on one side (2-3 minutes on a medium heat).   Flip over and fry until golden on the other side.  Turn off the heat and allow to rest in the pan for a few minutes before serving.

Preparation: 15 minutes
Serves: 1-2 people

Courgette Cake

Member's Recipe: Courgette Cake

60 g raisins (optional)

250g courgettes (2-3)
2 large eggs

125ml vegetable oil

150g caster sugar

225g self raising flour

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

2x21 cm sandwich tins

Icing

200g cream cheese

100g icing sugar

juice of lime

Method

If using raisins, place in a bowl of boiled water to plump up.

Put the eggs, oil and sugar into a bowl and beat until creamy. Sieve in the flour, bicarb and baking powder and beat until well combined. Grate in the courgettes (wipe them first but don’t peel). Add the raisins. Pour the mixture into the lined, greased tins and bake for 30 mins at 180 C/gas mark 4 (I have quite a hot oven so mine normally takes about 20 mins at 170 C– you just want the cakes to be browned and for a skewer to come out clean). Couldn’t be easier.

To make the cream cheese icing, beat the cream and the icing sugar until smooth. Add the lime juice.

The recipe suggests a lime curd filling, with the icing/cream cheese for the top. I didn’t do that (laziness on my part) but here’s the recipe should you want it.

Lime Curd

75g unsalted butter

3 large eggs

75g caster sugar
Juice of approx 4 limes

Zest of 1 lime

Melt the butter in a heavy based saucepan, add all the other ingredients and whisk to a custard over a gentle heat. Let cool before filling the cake. The recipe suggests that if the lime curd needs firming up, just place the cake in the fridge for a while.

Linda James

Squash or pumpkin risotto

If you've grown squash or pumpkin this year, here's a recipe for a delicious, creamy risotto from Antonio Carluccio's book, vegetables.  If it's too small to read, just click on the image and it will appear much larger in a new window...

Fed up with courgette yet? Here's a suggestion from Glut Gourmet.

Creamy Courgette Pasta

1lb/450g courgettes
8 fluid ounces/250g creamy yoghurt or creme fraiche
a teaspoon of cornflour
fresh basil
olive oil
pasta

Top and tail the courgettes and grate them. Mix the cornflour into the yoghurt or creme fraiche. Heat some olive oil in a pan and when it's hot, add the grated courgettes and toss them rapidly for a couple of minutes so that they get very hot without burning. Add the yoghurt or creme fraiche and stir it in - the cornflour should prevent it from separating. When the mixture is thoroughly hot, serve with the pasta of your choice and shred a few basil leaves over the top.

Matthew, my husband's, highest praise was "you can hardly tell that was courgette". High praise indeed, especially by this time of year.