From Plot to Plate, Super Surplus, Not-so-Super Strimming, Sweetest Substitute & Garden Laugh

Taken from Lynne’s weekly column ‘Green Scene’ for the Western Mail
21^st August 2021

From Plot to Plate

Hooray! At last I am managing to ‘pick my tea’ from my garden most nights – and even get to eat it out in the garden some evenings– despite it feeling distinctly autumnal.

Over the last fortnight, most evenings I have picked spinach, runner beans, kale, courgettes, lettuce, tomatoes and beetroot from the garden – together with eggs from my own hens. I have had some weird and wonderful concoctions but nonetheless, all of it home-grown or produced. And I’m feeling quite smug about it (as you can probably tell), as it’s been another challenging year for the veg garden.

I have had to share a lot of ‘greens’ with my resident rabbits, the pigeons stripped the first lot of runner beans and the mice had my peas. But I finally have some food for myself – so it goes to show – keep persevering, and eventually you’ll reap what you sow.

Despite picking runner beans most days I still miss some, so I cook up those ‘tougher’ ones and the ‘strings’ from mine for Yogi. She also likes them raw and has been known to help herself to the ‘Westie high’ ones. The chickens will also eat them cooked, so they have some too, and the beetroot tops are a treat for them too. I am obviously still missing my pet pigs hugely but even more so as I am reminded that they were great at hoovering up any surplus from the veg patch.

I have been using a glut of kale to make kale crisps – just by removing the stalks, tearing up the leaves, mixing with a little olive oil and Engevita and cooking them very slowly in the oven. Similarly, beetroot can be used to make beetroot crisps by thinly slicing and baking. It’s a great way to use them up. I also put some beetroot in foil and leave overnight in the ashes of my fire pit. They are cooked to perfection by the next morning and perfect to take to work.

Super Surplus

Anyone who has ‘grown their own’ will know that you also have to be able to use what you grow, and usually it all comes at once, so the more recipes and methods of using your veg you can come up with the better. The cartoonist Bill Tidy told me he always uses his surplus veg as currency with neighbours, friends and family. I’ve tried pickling a bit of stuff this year, and made a lovely cucumber Kimchi. It’s all about experimenting.

Dehydrated veg can make healthy snacks and dehydrated beetroot, carrot and parsnips also make excellent treats for your dog, with FIVE times the nutrients of an equivalent raw vegetable. Dehydrated carrots have a whopping 17 times more nutrients than when raw.

Parsnip is a great source of antioxidants and can be helpful to dogs with cholesterol or diabetic issues, and beetroot is great for strengthening the immune system as well as promoting a healthy heart and blood chemistry.

If you haven’t got a dehydrator, just ‘dry’ the sliced veg long and slow in the bottom of your oven for delicious treats you can share with your four-legged friend.

Not-so-Super Strimming

I couldn’t resist sharing this week’s most ‘ironic’ moment with you. Last autumn I planted up a steep bank with daffodils for a client. The bank ran down to the main road and, a bit worried that an enthusiastic council-worker may strim the bank at an inappropriate time, I had a sign made and put it on the bank – ‘Please don’t strim, I’ll be bloomin’ lovely in the spring’.

The daffs were lovely, as were the following ox eyed daisies but this week the bank needed to be strimmed. Taking lots of care to strim around the sign, I had nearly finished when I slipped … and strimmed the corner right off my sign!

And, as sharing this proves, whilst I realise I am woefully intolerant of other people’s stupidity, I seem to remain rather entertained by my own.

Sweetest Substitute

Jam-making season is creeping up on us and I have been asked if I can recommend a low sugar jam recipe for diabetics. I can do better than that – I have recently discovered Zusto. Described as ‘sugar free sugar’, it is a sugar substitute made from specific food fibres that were chosen for their health benefits.

I bet you won’t be able to taste the difference between it and ‘real’ sugar. There is no horrible after-taste that you get with some other sugar substitutes and is suitable for putting in your tea or coffee, for baking, deserts, ice cream, and as I have recently discovered, jam making. My strawberry jam tasted great and set as normal and I’ll definitely be using it for blackberry jelly and plum jam over the next few weeks. Zusto also caramelises well and performs just like sugar. Not only is it ‘well-behaved’, it has a whopping 75% fewer calories than sugar and actually has numerous other health benefits, including:

Increased absorption of calcium & magnesium which helps prevent osteoporosis
Reduction in blood cholesterol
Slowing down of glucose absorption in blood
Stimulation of intestinal flora for a healthy gut
Improved lipid metabolism

It is available from some supermarkets but also from www.zusto.co.uk and the website has lots of FAQ’s and lovely recipes. And if you want to you can do that old fashioned thing and speak to a real person with any questions, you can call (Caldicot, Monmouthsire) 01291 422747.

I’ll certainly be stocking up to make the most of the imminent fruit harvest.