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| Zucchini potato cheese bake |
With zucchini plants getting going and chuck out a lot of fruits, this is a simple way to cook a lot of zucchini (will shrink a lot) and is very tasty.
1. Cut zucchini and potato into slices, season with salt, chili flakes and olive oil, shake to mix well.
2. Spread on a large baking tray lined with paper, sprinkle a generous amount of grated cheese like cheddar on top, bake at 180˚ until golden, around 40 minutes.
Some of the bigger size fish are filleted for easy cooking like Pollock, try to cook whole as much as possible.
The head, bones, jaw, belly are all used without any waste.
fish soup
Fish head and bones soup
baked fish jaw and belly
Baked fish jaw and belly, season with salt
for a day, brush soy sauce honey mixture on surface, baked until cooked, around
20 minutes.The most tasty part of all those white fish!
shiitake 
seared shiitake 
ready to harvest shiitake
The shiitake substrate comes with a few small mushrooms, after a week when the gills formed they are ready to harvest, got 700gm. Should have a few more rounds of harvest, will see.
Seared in lard, season with salt and fresh herb, lovely thick texture and mild aroma.
Wild blackberry has very little juice compared with farmed one, so I add fermented rice, providing liquid that is naturally sweet.
wild blackberry 
cooked crushed wild blackberry
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| blackberry wine fermenting |
1. Prepare fermented rice.
2. Cook wild blackberry until soft and crush the fruit, for easy extraction of flavor.
3. I used 1 part fermented rice with 2 parts cooked wild blackberry, add a teaspoon of neutral wine yeast to get the right alcohol content.
4. Cover with cling film, when bubble forms, move to a cool dark room, stir once everyday to ensure completed fermentation, until no more bubble forms, around 5 days.
5. Leave in cool room until all solid sink to the bottom, around 3 months, ready to serve.
I now sow most seeds in units in propagator, including carrot. Much better success rate, faster germination, so can keep the soil covered to reduce weed until transplanting time.
carrot Red Sun, Oxhella
This carrot Red Sun (a deep red variety) is notoriously hard to germinate in open field, according to my previous experiences, in the propagator, no problem at all.
The second sowing of pea Early On in outside bed in June is growing very well, with a lot of peas to harvest from mid August onwards. The best performing plant with good yield and few pests problem.
pea Early On 
pea Early On
river shannon 
river Shannon 
river Shannon
This is a part of river Shannon famous for fishing, the river is wide and left natural, with an easy path along. The section near Castlekernnel has a ruin and a group of old yew trees, fantastic location with fabulous river view, walled courtyard with trees.
yew tree 
yew tree 
yew tree 
yew tree 
yew tree
Many yew trees have grown too tall for the thin soil available, fallen down in storm but managed to grow new branches. It is beautiful to see such hard wood tree branches flow softly over other trunks to make unbelievable twists and curls.
Shiitake mushroom Shiitake substrate
Bought shiitake mushroom at the weekend farmers market, they are surprisingly 'meaty' thick and dense texture, and fragrant.
I studied the website of the organic mushroom farm, learned that when shiitake is grown in cooler climate, it grows slower and resulting in thicker mushroom. The farm sells substrate with spores of mushroom planted for home growers to enjoy the fun, and sure I can't resist the temptation to see how shiitake grows.
Blackcurrant clafouti
Normally I turn blackcurrant into jam, for use in breakfast or use in ice cream. I have a small second harvest of blackcurrant from a mature plant, too small a quantity to worth the time cooking into jam. So I made clafouti, which is normally used in stone fruit like cherry, the result is good and it mellowed the strong flavor of blackcurrant.
Blackcurrant, sugar
2 eggs
40gm sugar
130gm coconut cream (or milk and cream)
20gm flour
20gm melted butter
pinch of salt
1. Macerate blackcurrant with brown sugar and liqueur (optional) for half a day to soften.
2. Mix the clafouti ingredients.
3. Butter a baking dish, the line with sugar, pour blackurrant into an even layer, then pour clafouti mixture on top.
4. Bake at 170˚C until risen and golden, around 40 minutes.
Basque beef tomato Baked tomatoes
Harvesting tomatoes everyday, from cherry to mid size to beef tomatoes, time to make tomato sauce, semi-dried tomato and use a lot in cooking. I find baked tomato much more tasty than raw ones and is also more nutritious too.
1. In a baking dish, place slices of potatoes at the bottom, then a layer of zucchini slices, season with salt and pepper.
2. Peel skin off tomatoes, cut into thick slices, place on top of zucchini, sprinkle salt and drizzle olive oil on top. Bake at 180˚ until potato cooked, and tomato shrank, around 40 minutes.
Green bean, potato and anchovy
I like to bake runner or climbing bean instead of cooking on stove, to concentrate flavor without adding water and have even cooking easily. In this dish I used anchovy and chili flakes to flavor the dish, so there is mouthful of sweet bean then a spike of salty anchovy or hot chili, interesting to taste all flavors and not totally mixed up.
1. Cut green bean into serving lengths, use peeler to shave thin slices of potato, cut a few anchovy into small pieces, add chili flakes and olive oil, shake to mix well.
2. Bake at 170˚C until cooked, around 30 minutes.
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| scallion ginger confit garlic sauce with mackerel |
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This is a less oily version of the tradition sauce that uses oil as the base, here I used confit garlic as base, giving a mild garlic flavor in the sauce, goes well with fish and white meat.
1. Cut scallion finely, season with salt, add grated ginger, mix well and rest for 15 minutes to soften.
2. Mesh a few confit garlic, mix with scallion ginger.
While the smoker is going, also put in some vegetables to cook at the same time.
Slow cooking (110˚C for 3 hours) of potato slices produced a waxy texture which I like much more than floury texture.
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Hot smoked potato, carrot beetroot and garlic |
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Hot smoked beetroot and garlic |
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Hot smoking potato and carrots |
Carrots are soft and flavor concentrated.
Golden beetroot, after peeling off the skin after smoking, has a deep orange layer on the outside, flavor concentrated.
Whole head of garlic is nicely soft, same result as confit in oil but simpler.
Practice hot smoking (110˚C) of meat, this time is pork ribs and belly. After 3 hours, the meat gets a beautiful pick tint on the surface, very mild smoke flavor and a texture that is firm but connective tissues softened.
Hot smoked pork belly 
Hot smoked pork belly 
Hot smoked pork ribs and belly 
Hot smoking pork ribs and belly
1. Season ribs and belly with soy sauce, miso paste, 5 spices powder, brown sugar, rice wine for at least a day, turn over halfway.
2. Hot smoke, with a pan of hot water at the bottom to regulate constant temperature of around 110˚C, with cherry wood for 3 hours.
Pig trotter aspic 
Pig trotter aspic
The small organic dairy and pig farm nearby keeps all parts of the pig for sale, very rare. Bought some trotters to make this delicious collagen supplement.
1. Blanch trotters in boiling water for 10 minutes, scrape away any surface hair and marks.
2. Cover with water, season with salt, vinegar, sugar, rice wine and spices (star anise, clove, cardamom, ginger, Sichuan pepper, old mandarin peel, white pepper etc), simmer until soft, around 4 hours.
3. Transfer trotters to a flat bottom dish, remove bones and break into small pieces to cover the dish evenly.
4. Sieve out spices, reduce liquid to thicken, pour over trotters, cool at room temperature. Keep in fridge overnight, when firmly set, scrape away surface layer of fat for use in cooking.
Serve as such, or mix with cucumber cubes, season with a dressing of yogurt and mustard.
Brought along the seed of Basque beef tomato to grow here, a variety of beef tomato that is robust and has very good flavor and texture. I am happy that it grows well in the green house, though a much smaller plant than in France. The fruits are the same size as before and turned red in mid August, not bad. Saved the seed of this earliest fruit to carry on propagating the 5th generation next year.
Basque beef tomato 
Basque beef tomato on toast, with smoked mackerel 
seed of Basque beef tomato
Excellent to serve as such, with seasoning of salt and olive oil, on toast to soak up all the delicious juice.
Pizza with confit garlic puree and
chrysanthemum green
Pizza tomato Harbinger,
parmesan cheese and oregano
Pizza with carrot Early market, shiitake
mushroom and parsley
Pizza with cherry tomato Sweet Aperitif
sauce, zucchini Costata Romanesco, green pepper Hungarian Wax and calendula
petal
Dessert pizza with sour cream, raspberry
jam and blueberries
From initially only a few ripe ones a day, just enough to eat as aperitif, now it is a good harvest every few days. Hard to finish so many, it is time to convert to sauce or soup.
Cherry tomato Sweet Aperitif 
Cherry tomato Sweet Aperitif
1. Cut tomatoes into halves, season with salt and olive oil, cook to soften.
2. Blend to a puree so that the skin is not noticeable, much nicer this way.
Adjust seasoning, salt/sugar, use as soup or reduce to make a tasty sauce.
Smoked mackerel rillette cucumber sandwich
This batch of mackerel is not that oily, good to use as rillette for a light lunch, with cucumber Poona Kheera.
1. Remove skin and bones, mix cooked smoked mackerel with sour cream, fennel fronds, season with salt and white pepper.
2. Butter a slice of bread, lay thin slices of cucumber on top then piled mackerel rillette on top.
