No. 35 - July 2005
Welcome to the Recipes4us.co.uk free monthly newsletter.
Due to some major technical difficulties, this month's newsletter is a little lighter than usual however, I hope there's enough to keep you going until the August newsletter which hopefully will be back to full strength!
If you have any suggestions for additions to this newsletter, please write to me at Newsletter@Recipes4us.co.uk .
Happy Cooking !
Florence Sandeman, Editor
And I quote.....
"Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone"
L
Jim Fiebig
What's New This Month
Cooking Tip of the Month
To save leftover wineFill ice cube trays with any leftover wine then freeze. Once frozen, transfer the cubes to freezer bags, label and date. Use from frozen and add to sauces, casseroles and stews.
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What's in Season
Artichokes, Asparagus, Aubergines, Basil, Carrots, Cauliflower, Celery, Coriander, Courgettes, Cucumbers, Endive, Lemon Grass, Lettuce, Melons, Mint, Peas, Plums, Radish, Raspberries, Runner Beans, Rocket, Sage, Sea Kale, Spinach, Spring Onions, Strawberries, Tarragon, Tomatoes, Watercress
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How does your Kitchen Garden grow
Outdoors
Plants such as courgettes, marrows, runner, dwarf and green beans and outdoor cucumbers should be romping away by now. Make sure you keep them well watered and weed free.
Continue to make small sowings of carrots, lettuce, radish, spinach and spring onions to ensure a continuous harvest. although a good alternative is to just harvest every other plant. that way, you can have young small tender veggies now whilst leaving some to grow on. This method works especially well with Carrots, spring onions, turnips and beetroot.
When harvesting spinach, leaf beet and loose leaved lettuce, only harvest a few outside leaves from each plant, allowing the plants to keep throwing up new leaves.
Check the ties and staking of taller plants such as beans and tomatoes , loosening or tightening as necessary.
Cordon tomatoes
Pinch out side shoots which will appear where the leaves join the stems, when they are about 2.5cm/1" long. Once tomatoes have developed on 4 or 5 trusses, pinch out the growing tip.
Aubergines and Capsicums
Fine spraying of plants with water helps encourage fruit to set. Limit to 5 or 6 fruits per plant. Once the fruit start to swell, feed with tomato food each time you water.
Courgettes and Marrows
Pinch out growing tips of trailing varieties when they reach 60cm/2ft long or have 6-8 leaves. Keep very well watered but only water around the plants and feed with liquid fertiliser once the fruits begin to form. Continual cropping is necessary to prolong the harvesting period. Start cutting courgettes at about 10cm/4" and Marrows at about 20cm/8".
For detailed growing instructions visit growing herbs and vegetables section
A superb site where you can search for cottages by district, price, date and size. And not only cottages in Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England ....they have many cottages in France and Germany too.
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July is National Ice Cream Month.....at least in the USA
Now, I know Recipes4us is essentially a British site and that I usually only feature British National days/weeks/months. BUT as a lover of ice cream, I think the rest of the world should adopt this National month.
This isn't an age-old National Month in America. In fact, it was President Ronald Regan (1981-1989) who designated July as National Ice Cream Month and further, that the third Sunday of July be National Ice Cream Day.
I know there are some wonderful ready made ice creams on the market now, but I'm going to take this opportunity to give a very big plug for home made ice cream.
It's not difficult to make ice cream at home and you don't have to have an ice cream maker either although they do make an easy job even easier.
So, what do you need?
Well, it depends on what recipe you're using. You must have a freezer or freezer compartment in your fridge. For many you can get away with a mixing bowl, sieve, freezer proof container and utensils like a wooden spoon. For others you can add to that list a saucepan and a blender or food processor.
A word about Ice Cream Machines
I admit to having one! Being a kitchen gadget freak, I bought a very basic ice cream maker many years ago. It's the type where you freeze the bowl beforehand then attach the motorised paddle before adding the ice cream mixture which is then churned for about 20 minutes.
The drawback of these simple machines is that you have to pre-freeze the bowls for a few hours. Also they tend to be quite small, only making enough ice cream to serve 4-6 people BUT the resulting mixture is very smooth and much lighter than if it wasn't used so it's worth it.
If you only make ice cream occasionally, these are the machines for you as they are relatively compact and cheap.
If you want to go the whole hog, there are some very fancy machines on the market which are more or less, automatic and only need to be turned on 5-10 minutes beforehand because they have their own freezing units built in.
They are more expensive, but if you want to be able to eat your home made ice cream within 30 minutes of having had the idea to make it, these are the ones for you. You can purchase both types online at http://www.onlinekitchenware.co.uk
Types of Ice Cream
The two traditional types of ice cream recipes are ones made with an egg-custard base and ones made with cream as the base but there are now many variations which stray from these including ones using yoghurt, evaporated milk, crème frâiche and tofu - the letter being ideal for vegans.
There are a few examples of all these types of ice creams listed at the end of this newsletter (no, not the bacon and egg one) in the Featured Recipes section however there are many more throughout the main site. Use the search form to find them all.
For me, cream based ice creams are the easiest as basically, they are just cream with added flavourings in the form of chocolate, fruit etc. However, although custard based ice creams involve more "cooking", they have the advantage that they can be adapted to contain less calories by substituting milk (including skimmed) for the cream.. They also tend to have a lighter, softer texture.
The nice thing about home made ice cream is that you can adjust the flavourings to suit your own tastes. I love the taste of plums with cinnamon (don't ask me why I just do) which is how I came up with the Cinnamon Plum ice cream recipe (below). So, if you like the taste of honey, for example, you can substitute it for some of the sugar content.
Just as an aside, this brings to mind the story of a chef we have in England who serves unusual dishes at his restaurant including Bacon and Egg Ice cream! Sounds weird to me but that restaurant has been voted one of the best places to eat in the world.
I've also featured some recipes for sauces and other accompaniments to serve with your home made ice cream including meringue cases and Tuilles, a light biscuit, which also help to use up the leftover egg whites from custard-based recipes.
Happy Ice Cream making!
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