Home >> 2010 >> June 2010

Courgette Cake

Category: Latest News, Recipes
Jun. 27th, 2010
 Posted By elaine - 1 Comment

from ‘100 great recipes – Farmers Market’

A variation of the more familiar carrot cake – the courgette adds sweetness and a moist texture. A half and half mixture with carrots is also an option.

Ingredients:
3 free range eggs
75g golden caster sugar
150g self-raising flour
225g courgettes, trimmed and grated
25g butter, melted
25g sultanas

Icing:
175g full-fat cream cheese (eg Philadelphia)
1tbsp lemon or orange juice
75g icing sugar

1. Preheat oven to 180c,350f or gas mark 4.
2. Lightly oil and line the base of an 8inch round cake tin.
3. Place the eggs and sugar in a large mixing bowl and whisk until very pale and thick.
4.Fold in the courgettes. Carefully fold in the flour. Drizzle over the melted butter and fold in. Add sultanas.
5. Pour into the prepared cake tin and bake for 25-35 mins or until springy to the touch. Cool in the tin for 5 mins before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
6.Beat together the cheese, lemon juice and icing sugar until just combined. Spread over the top of the cake.

variation – substitute 25g ground almonds for 25g of the flour.

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Fresh produce from our garden

Category: Latest News
Jun. 24th, 2010
 Posted By elaine - Leave a Comment

Our farm gate sales are now up and running 2 months and business is going well.

We harvest every Friday and Saturday to sell from our log cabin beside the garden and tunnel and regular passing trade is building up steadily. Our regular veg box customers are a great core to the business and we very much appreciate their weekly orders.

As the summer progresses the range of produce is increasing – and we are adding new items weekly. The tunnel ensures that we have crops earlier than would be possible outside – and we now have a great range of salads, scallions, potatoes, carrots, courgettes and soon will have cucumbers. We are still topping up our own produce from an organic supplier when we are waiting for our crops, but the garden is doing very well this year and things are coming on quickly.

We still have capacity to take on weekly veg box customers who have the added benefit of 15% free extra produce. So for a box costing 20 euro you get 23 euro produce. If you are interested in joining this scheme you are welcome to get in touch.

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Spiced potato & bean salad with roasted red peppers

Category: Latest News, Recipes
Jun. 24th, 2010
 Posted By elaine - 2 Comments

from Avoca Salads

A substantial salad to have on its own or with barbequed meat or fish. Easy to prepare ahead of time.

Ingredients:
3 red peppers, seeded and cut into thick strips
8 tbsps olive oil
500g new potatoes, washed and halved
2 tsps powdered cajun spice
1 can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1 bunch scallions, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
2 chillies, finely chopped
1 bunch flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

Preheat to oven to 180c.
Toss the red pepper strips in 2 tbsps olive oil and roast for 10-15mins, turning occasionally. Transfer the peppers to a bowl and cover with clingfilm. Peel when cool enough to handle.

Toss the potatoes in the cajun spice and remaining olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and roast for 30-40 mins or until tender. You need to toss the potatoes once or twice during this time.

When the potatoes are cooked, combine with the beans, scallions, garlic, chilli and roasted peppers. Toss so everyting is well coated. Allow to cool and add the parsley, salt and pepper and toss again.

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A BIG thank you to our helpers

Category: Latest News
Jun. 17th, 2010
 Posted By elaine - Leave a Comment

Since early Spring we have been constantly busy keeping up with sowing, transplanting, planting out, hoeing, weeding, manuring, rotavating etc. etc. With our new tunnel we have been working extra hard to bring on all our new tunnel crops – tomatoes, cucumbers, french beans etc and the volume of work is a little knee weakening at times… The tunnel is now fully planted and looking good. All the crops are doing well, and, as we approach the summer solstice (the longest day of the year and height of the growing season) we are very pleased with how the garden is going.

At this point I want to thank all the volunteer helpers who have boosted our efforts enormously all year. We have been very lucky to have offers of help from others who are interested in growing and learning and have been very generously giving their time to help us get the garden planted.

Una, Denise and Fiona have been helping us regularly and their help has pushed things along and stopped us running out of steam. Alexander has been with us for the month of June and Mark and Sally came for a day when we were urgent to get outdoor crops into the ground. And of course Jim and Rebecca have helped us time and again in keeping us on track.

It is really nice to have extra hands in, and extra thoughts on the garden and it is a great boost to feel part of a team. So a BIG thank you to you all – and looking forward to sharing our crops with you.

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