Colcannon is Irish mashed potato with cabbage, and it is one of those surprisingly wonderful recipes that have you going “aha! I understand how this became a national dish”. It has just four ingredients and like any of those classics that every kid remembers grandma making, there are more versions than you would think possible with so few ingredients. This is mine.
The question I see come up more often than any other in garden forums is how to deal with pests. And I get it. Watching the aphids arrive right when your beautiful broccolini get to the stage where you don’t know if you want to eat it or photograph it is hard, especially in a small garden. It takes nerve to hold fire.
My part of the world is not kind to potatoes, or wheat, or sugar cane. More and more I am realising that our northern European food culture, imported along with the first fleet, makes very hard work of it. The food crops that dominate the Farmer’s Market are mostly south-east Asian, African, Central American, or Pacific Islander. Besides all the wonderful range of greens and fruits, there’s the starchy calorie…
I bought a cinnamon tree. It’s a small tree – two to five metres – and attractive with its glossy green leaves and red new growth. And it needs to be pruned hard. So I should be able to find a spot for it somewhere even in this little suburban garden. But some research about cinnamon being “a potent botanical for complicated UTI” struck me.
There’s something about sourdough – the simplest of ingredients, the living culture, the soft resilience of the dough as you handle it, the mindfulness in being a day ahead of need – no matter how busy I get it’s worth it. But therein lies the danger. I really do need to cut down the amount of bread I eat! A jar of sourdough crispbread on the shelf stretches the time…
This is so simple, yet it is one of my most used recipes this time of year, when both parsley and lemons are in glut and dinner is often a long slow-cooked soup or stew that could do with some brightening up.
I’ve been bandicooting the yacon for months now, but this morning I harvested the rest – over 10 kg from about 2.5m2 of garden bed. The tubers are sweet and crisp and very good for you. My grandkids love eating fresh yacon just as is, peeled and eaten like an apple straight from the hand. We adults eat it mostly finely sliced in salads, or as batons in stir fries,…