A mind of its own

The garden is suffering from neglect.  The summer season has arrived (think Chelsea, Ascot, Wimbledon; the reality is wedding, hen weekend, wedding, hen weekend, wedding) and I am spending glorious weekend after glorious weekend sipping champagne in other peoples' gardens, gardens which have been spruced, pruned, weeded and manicured within an inch of their lives for the Big Day.  The result is that my own garden has run amok.

Audrey II of the lettuce world?

The lettuce, spinach and chard are bolting.  The rocket and basil are in flower.  The wigwams of peas are dripping with swollen pods which I have not had time to pick.  And the strawberry plants are coloured red by their cheery cargo, now overripening in every additional day's sun .  And I do not have the time to harvest the garden's (un)seasonal bounty or provide it with the love and attention to which it has grown accustomed.    As the current plants exhaust themselves ahead of schedule, I am gripped with panic and a urgent need to re-sow in order to ensure a steady supply the whole summer long.

Peas ready for picking

This unprecedented behaviour (for June) has, I think, been caused by the warm weather.  Yet, the weather was not warm enough to ensure that the nuptial sweet peas were ready for Paul's and Ellie's nuptials on 21 May 2011.  Covered in buds, their development was halted by the cooler temperatures of the preceding ten days and the buds taunted me but refused to open.  In desperation, I considered a number of options (kindly proffered by friends and family who had been eagerly following the sweet peas' progress) including heat lamps and the suggestion made (by the bride) that I bring all eight of the enormous pots of sweet peas inside, turned my heating onto maximum and left the lights on overnight in order to create hothouse conditions.  After some discussion it was reluctantly agreed that these options were prohibitive, primarily on the grounds of cost and environmental impact but also concern that the use of heat lamps in my corner of south-east London might prompt suspicion from the authorities as to the legality of what I was growing.  So instead I (and the bride) came to terms with the disappointment of my failure and I prepared myself for the knowing comments from the smug grannies on the ensuing Saturday (http://tastebuds-kitchengarden.blogspot.com/2011/02/sweet-peas-and-moonwalkers.html). 

The sweet peas are a useful reminder that the garden's joyful development is, in most respects, out of my control (the lettuce, a reminder that it is in fact out of control?).  Although I am sometimes forced to quash the rising sense of alarm caused by the realisation that I have not done everything on my horticultural 'to do' list, the garden provides a healthy opposition to the orderliness of my full time job.  Whilst I can happily while away hours 'working' in the garden, removing offending weeds and evicting gluttonous slugs and snails (and ticking items off that list), all of which risk threatening the working order of my garden, I do not really want to tame it. 

I want the beds to be thick with flowers, not standing neatly to attention but cavorting wildly through the beds.  I want the vegetables to grow in an unbridled fashion, unfettered by the boundaries laid down by a strict planting plan (for I will only benefit from their unruly abundance).  I admired the free-spirited strawberry who last year made a bid for freedom from the confines of the strawberries' raised bed and sent a runner over the top and into the grass.  I applauded the strawberry's tenancy and joie de vivre (although I obviously could not allow him to stay there and trans-planted him to a more apt location back in the strawberries' bed).

The recipes this week are in recognition of the garden's hearty abundance. The first, pearl barley, pea and lettuce risotto, offers a refreshing and alternative use for lettuce, so often thought of in relation only to salad, its cooked qualities largely unsung (the just wilted lettuce provides the perfect complement to the crisp sweetness of the peas and the fresh bite of the lemony pearl barley). 

The second is a strawberry cheesecake cake (the original recipe is borrowed from the Hummingbird Bakery's strawberry cheesecake cupcake) which I made at the weekend for my local Big Lunch and which seemed to go down quite well. 

Pearl barley, pea and lettuce risotto
(I ate this just as it is but it would also be delicious with white fish or roast chicken)

60g pearl barley

1 clove of garlic, crushed

Olive oil

Frozen peas

1 courgette, diced

Vegetable stock

1 lemon

Lettuce, roughly chopped

Cook the pearl barley according to the instructions (or approximately 15 minutes in a pressure cooker).  Rinse in cold water.

Heat the olive oil gently in a frying pan and add the peas, courgette and garlic.  Fry gently until the vegetables are just beginning to colour.  Add the pearl barley and a couple of ladles of stock.  Simmer and as the stock evaporates, add another ladle of stock making sure that it does not dry out. 
Once the vegetables are cooked al dente, add a squeeze of lemon and stir through the chopped lettuce.  Season with salt and pepper. 

Strawberry cheesecake cake

240g plain flour

280g caster sugar

3 tsp baking powder

a pinch of salt

80g unsalted butter (at room temperature)

240ml whole milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

Strawberries, chopped into small pieces

For the icing

150g icing sugar

25g unsalted butter (at room temperature)

75g cream cheese

4 digestive biscuits

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C.
Beat the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter until combined.  Pour in the milk and vanilla extract and beat until smooth.  Add the egg and beat until combined. 
Line the cake tin with baking parchment (I used a 25cm square tin) and grease the sides with butter.  Cover the base of the tin with the strawberry pieces.  Spoon the cake mixture over the top.  Bake in the pre-heated oven for 30-40 minutes until light golden and a skewer comes out clean. 
Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes and then turn out onto a wire rack (sponge side down).  Gently peel off the baking parchment and allow to cool.

To make the icing, beat the icing sugar and butter until well mixed.  Add the cream cheese and beat until combined (be careful not to overbeat or the mixture will become runny).  Blitz the digestive biscuits in food processor (or in a sandwich bag with a rolling pin) until finely ground.

Once cool, place the cake on a plate, sponge side up.  Spoon the icing over the top of the cake and spread to cover the cake.  Arrange extra pieces of strawberry on top.  Finish with a sprinkling of crushed digestive biscuits. 

Enjoy x

The sweet peas burst into pastel scented flower on the Wednesday following the wedding and are now liberally adorned around my garden and my house...