I had a busy afternoon stocking up on breakfast bits and pieces. I made a sourdough loaf, some rhubarb and orange compote and a batch of our own-recipe granola. It's so straightforward to make I have no idea why people eat the shop-bought stuff (which can be so sugary with nasty dried fruit); the other great thing is that you can pretty much choose what you put in it. Here's our standard recipe - but we often make changes depending on what we have in. Another great recipe is Andy's Fairfield Granola from Nigella Lawson's Feast - very delicious, but a bit more luxurious than ours.
House Granola
400g rolled oats
50g pumpkin seeds
50g sunflower seeds
30g sesame seeds
150g whole unblanched almonds
75g Freedom Syrup (or any other syrup - rice or maple maybe)
150ml water
150ml cold pressed rape seed oil (or mild oil of your choice)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
freshly grated nutmeg (around 1/2 tsp)
250g raisins
Preheat your oven to 190C/Gas Mark 5. Mix all the ingredients, apart from the raisins, in a large bowl. Spread the mixture thinly into 2 large shallow baking or roasting tins. Bake for around 25-30 mins until golden brown, turning everything over after about 15 minutes to make sure everything gets nicely crunchy. Try not to handle the granola too roughly - otherwise it will become a bit crumby. When it's done, take it out of the oven and leave to cool on the trays. Divide the raisins between the 2 trays and stir them in. Transfer your granola to a airtight container - the quantities given above exactly fill a 2 litre clip top Le Parfait jar.
I can't tell you exactly how long this keeps for - we've never managed to keep a jar for longer than a week, but it still tastes nice and fresh then, so I'd imagine that it would keep for a couple of weeks. It is delicious served with plain old milk, or with yogurt and fruit compote or sliced banana. I don't need to tell you how nutritious the ingredients are - it's also really filling too. I hope you give it a try and enjoy it as much as we do.
Because, despite all that pests (like the cursed blackfly who ransacked our second broad bean crop), and disease (like the dreaded blight that's done for many of our tomatoes), and the weather (that's stopped things from ripening quickly enough) have thrown at us, it's the time of year when you can just step out into the garden and pick things to have with lunch or dinner.
Possibly my favourite success story this year has been the cucumbers. Not only have we got some of the bigger varieties, but the smaller ones have come up trumps too. These ones will be for salads and sandwiches:
And there are still loads of tiny ones on the plants. We're really hoping to get a big number of these ready at once so we can have a go at pickling them. In the meantime, we'll enjoy the fresh ones as they ripen.
Runner beans are something I really remember from childhood, twining their way round towering cane structures. Then cooked lightly and enjoyed throughout the later bits of summer until they went a bit too stringy to eat. They're really coming into their own now and I picked a load today to go into dinner:
And some to spare too.
Then there's the fruit. The old faithful blackberry bush is producing loads of fruit and we picked enough over the last couple of days for Ali to make some soft blackberry conserve to have for breakfast, stirred into some yoghurt. The plum tree is covered in fruit and this evening was the time for the first batch of plum jam. First of a few, I reckon.
The most modest crop of fruit we've had has been from the alpine strawberry plants - mostly these have been ripening in ones or twos for a little treat while gardening. But this afternoon I found quite a few:
So tomorrow we'll have them with our yoghurt, and save the new blackberry conserve for another day.
