Älplermagronen recipe and German apple sauce (Apfelmus) receipe (vegetarian recipes)

Ever since I visited my friend Moni in Switzerland I've been making Älplermagronen, a delicious Swiss recipe that she made for me while I was staying with her. Älplermagronen translates as Alpine herdsman's macaroni, and it's a macaroni and potato-based dish made out of a mixture of long-life ingredients and things an Alpine herdsman would have easy access to when living far away from other people half way up a mountain (think Heidi's grandfather). I didn't like any of the recipes I found in English for it, so I've translated a Swiss one. Because this dish goes perfectly with German apple sauce, I've also added a (sugar-free!) recipe for German apple sauce.

Älplermagronen (serves 4)

2 onions
½ tbsp flour
2 tbsp olive/vegetable oil
1 tablespoon butter
250 g waxy potatoes (e.g. new potatoes)
350 g macaroni
200 g Gruyere
200 ml single cream
salt and pepper
optional: marjoram for garnish
German apple sauce (Apfelmus) - see recipe below (best made in advance)/apples (sliced)
optional: green beans or salad to serve

1. Peel onions and slice into thin rings. Dust with flour and mix well.
2. Heat oil and butter in a frying pan, then fry the onions over medium heat for about 10 minutes until crispy. Lift out and drain on kitchen paper when done.
3. Meanwhile, put large pan of salted water on to boil.
4. Peel the potatoes and cut them into large bite-sized cubes. Boil for 5 minutes.
5. Add macaroni to the pan with the potatoes and boil for a further 8-10 minutes until just tender. Drain well.
6. Return the drained potatoes and macaroni to the pan on a low heat.
7. Remove the rind from the cheese; then cut the cheese into cubes. Add the cubed cheese and the cream to the macaroni and potatoes. Turn the heat off, put the lid on the pan and allow to warm through until cheese is melted – about 5 minutes.
9. Season to taste with pepper. Sprinkle onions on top. Garnish with marjoram if using. Serve with apple sauce or apple slices on the side and optionally with a salad or green beans or similar veg.

German apple sauce (Apfelmus)

2 kg apples – if using cooking/Bramley apples, add sugar to taste
200 ml water
optionally around 25 ml of lemon juice – prevents apples from going brown
optionally cloves, cinnamon stick, vanilla stick or other spices
glass jars with lids

1. Preheat oven to 160-180 C (to sterilise jars).
2. Peel and core the apples then cut them into small pieces.
3. Put the apples (and optionally the peel) in a pan with the water. Add the lemon juice if using. Also add any cloves/cinnamon/vanilla you are using.
3. Bring to a boil and let the apples simmer on low to medium heat for 20 minutes.
4. While the apples are boiling, sterilise jars and lids as follows:

• wash in hot soapy water but do not dry
• stand jars and lids upside down on a roasting tray
• heat in preheated oven for 15 mins
• turn the jars the right way up ready for filling using oven gloves

5. Once the apples have simmered you can optionally pour off some of the water for a thicker sauce. Either mash the apples coarsely or mash them into a fine puree.
6. Fill the applesauce into the sterilised jars and seal them with lids immediately. Turn upside down to cool.

An intrepid adventurer in the garden

 The garden has a new and intrepid inhabitant, a tiny little mouse:

This mouse is crazily brave. We were sitting out in the garden and the mouse was running back and forth past us, near enough to get photos. It was a tiny little thing, much smaller than an average adult mouse, so it must be either a baby or a different type of mouse. It's adorable, but I think it may be responsible for the hole in one of my squashes. I had previously put this down to slugs, and now there is a hole it the squash's skin, the slugs are munching happily away, but I suspect the original nibbler may have been this mouse or one of its friends.

Can you still eat big patty pan squashes? One-pan cream cheese, patty pan squash and tomato pasta recipe

 I did an accidental experiment in the garden by failing to notice one of my patty pan squashes until it had reached a diameter of about 16 cm (6 inches) across. I so utterly failed to notice it, that I don't even know if it started off yellow like the rest of my patty pan squashes or was dark green right from the start. Here's a picture of a normal patty pan squash next to my huge one.

It was so big, I wasn't sure if it was still going to be worth eating. But it seemed a shame to waste it, so I thought it would be worth giving it a try. When I cut it in half, it had far more prominent seeds that the little squash:

It also weighed around 800 g, so I didn't think it was sensible to eat the whole thing at once. Instead, I cut myself a quarter of it, scooped out the seeds and peeled it (because I thought the skin might be too tough to eat) and cut it into bite-sized slices. The little, yellow patty pan squash didn't seem too prickly, so I simply cut that one up without peeling it. The seeds were so tiny that there was no need to remove them. I then put both in the recipe below (no photo, because it didn't occur to me at the time that I was going to be including this recipe on the blog until after I'd eaten it and realised how nice it was):

Cream cheese, patty pan squash and tomato pasta recipe

Serves 1 (ingredients can be doubled, tripled, quadrupled etc.)

Ingredients

Up to 250 g of patty pan squashes

Up to 250 g tomatoes (ripe)

40-50 g Philadelphia-style cream cheese

80 g pasta (e.g. penne)

salt

freshly ground pepper

Method:

1. Boil water in a pan.

2. Add the pasta and put the buzzer on for 4 minutes less than the recommended cooking time.

3. While the pasta is cooking, prepare the squash. If necessary peel the squash (if big or prickly) and remove the seeds (if the seeds are big), then cut into bite-sized slices.

4. When the buzzer goes, add the slices of squash to the pan and set the buzzer for the final four minutes.

5. Meanwhile, chop the tomatoes into approximately 1 cm chunks and remove the hard core beneath where the stem was.

6. When the buzzer goes, thoroughly drain the pasta and squash in a sieve or colander and put the tomatoes in the pan. Add the pasta and squash back to the pan and return to the heat for around 30 seconds to warm the chopped tomatoes.

7. Add the cream cheese, salt and pepper (make sure you add a decent amount of pepper, it really brings out the flavour of the cream cheese).

8. Stir thoroughly.

9. Serve.

I've been doing very well with avoiding powdery mildew on the squashes so far this year. The leaves of a few of the squashes, especially the patty pan ones, became infected with powdery mildew after the torrential rain we had. But I removed the leaves and tied the squash plants up better so more of the plant was off the ground, and now they look good.

Orange and raspberry muffin recipe

I had one orange and one egg to use up plus more raspberries growing than you can shake a stick at, so I halved the quantities of a recipe for orange and raspberry muffins that I found online. The recipe was in cups, which was a bit of a pain (and reading it back, I notice I accidentally made some adaptations), but it turned out so delicious, I thought it was worth writing out a metric version, so here it is with my accidental adaptations (you'll need to halve the quantities if, like me, you've only got one orange and one egg left):

Ingredients (makes 12)

320 g plain flour

170 g cup white or golden sugar (plus extra for sprinkling)

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 pinch of ground nutmeg

1/2 cup  of vegetable oil (I used non-virgin olive oil)

235 ml whole milk

2 eggs (medium or large)

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 oranges (zest only)

570 ml fresh or frozen raspberries (approx.)

12 muffin cases

1. Put one of your oven racks in the middle position, then turn on the oven to 190 degrees C (no fan). Take out your muffin pans and put large muffin cases in 12 of the cups (in my muffin tin, the large cases stick over the top of the muffin tin - see photo above). Make sure you only have one case in each, I accidentally put doubles in several.

2. Stir the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and nutmeg together in a medium bowl. Whisk the oil, milk, eggs, and vanilla together in another bowl. Finely grate the zest from the oranges, than add to the wet ingredients.

3. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients and the raspberries into the centre (if you put them in frozen they will keep their form, if they are fresh or allowed to defrost they'll break up when you stir, which was delicious). Stir the wet and dry ingredients together until the dry ingredients are moistened but still a bit lumpy – do not over-mix the batter. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cases (mine were only about 3 mm off full - you could also make smaller ones by 3/4 filling the cases). Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with sugar (about 1/4 teaspoon per muffin).

4. If you went with 12 nearly full muffin cases, bake for about 30 minutes. If you went for 15  3/4 filled ones, bake for about 25 to 30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through cooking. You’ll know they are ready when they are golden brown (and a cake skewer comes out clean). Cool muffins in the pan on a rack for 5 to 10 minutes. Turn the muffins out of the pan and cool on the rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Harvest is coming

It's taken me a long time to get much to eat out of the garden this year, possibly largely due to slug and snail problems, but harvest is finally coming. Many of my apples are ripe. I know this because not only are they bright red, but they keep falling off the tree, and I keep eating them.

The raspberries are now producing more than I can usually eat in a day – I stir them into porridge – and I am freezing the rest.

The patty-pan squashes have also started producing edible squashes. You're meant to eat them when they're small. They have an incredibly boring flavour, so you have to put them with something more interesting. I've been having them with green beans and pasta and pesto and the few tomatoes that have ripened. It's nice to have a second sort of vegetable alongside the beans, and the plants seem to be producing fairly reliably now - not in the quantities a courgette would, but they're much lower FODMAP than courgettes.

My tomatoes have mainly yet to ripen, but they're getting pretty big, so I live in hope that they will soon.

The Maxima squashes are also coming along. This is my biggest one, and if it's anything to go by, the name is no lie: they're going to be huge.

I've accidentally also grown my most interesting sweet corn yet:

It's without any leaves covering it and it made me realise that each of the silks that stick out of the top connects directly to a different kernel of corn. It'll be interesting to watch it ripen.

The garden as a whole is looking dry anywhere I haven't watered (i.e. the grass), but I'm no longer worrying about whether I'm going to manage to harvest anything.

Roasted carrot soup

This soup is a variant of a soup recipe I found online because, as ever, I didn't have quite the right ingredients. It was, however, delicious in the variation I made it in, so I wanted to record it here. The recipe takes about an hour to an hour and a quarter.

Ingredients 

1.5 kg carrots

3 tablespoons olive oil

¾ teaspoon salt

2 medium onions

1 bock of frozen garlic (or 5 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped or minced)

½ teaspoon ground coriander

¼ teaspoon ground cumin

1 litre of vegetable stock or chicken stock

1 teaspoon of cider vinegar or wine vinegar

freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C (fan). 

2. Peel the carrots and chop them into chunks of about 1.5 cm, only instead of just cutting fat coin shapes with your knife at 90° to the carrot, have your knife at an angle of about 45°, so that you end up with slanting chunks with more surface area.  

3. Place the chopped carrots on a baking sheet. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil and ½ teaspoon of the salt. Toss the carrots until they are coated in the oil and salt. Arrange them in a single layer on the baking sheet.

4. Put the carrots in the oven and roast until caramelised (brown) at the edges and easily cut by a fork, , tossing halfway through. This will probably take about 35-40 minutes, but may take as little as 25 minutes with thin carrots of some varieties.

5. During the last 15-20 minutes of the carrots roasting, peel and chop the onions. Add the remaining tablespoon of olive oil to a large saucepan on a medium heat. Add the onions and ¼ teaspoon of salt and fry for 5-8 minutes until translucent and softened.

6. Add the garlic to the onions and stir for about a minute or until the garlic has largely defrosted. Add the coriander and cumin and stir for another 30 seconds. Pour in the stock and give it a good stir.

7. When the carrots have finished roasting, add them to the saucepan of onions and stock. Add the vinegar and season with pepper to taste.

8. Bring the mixture to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat for a gentle simmer. Cook for 15 minutes.

9. Remove the pan from the heat and let it cool for a few minutes. Then liquidise the soup in a liquidiser in batches, adding more water to adjust the thickness to your preference (and possibly to allow it to liquidise at all). I generally like my soups thick, so the picture at the top is of soup with the minimum necessary extra water added to let the soup liquidise.

How to keep greenhouse plants healthy

I have loved my greenhouse since the moment it was built, but in the past I've had problems keeping the plants in it healthy. This year is my best year so far, so here are the tips about what I've done differently this year:

1. Grow all your own plants from seed. This way you know you're not accidentally importing any infestation.

2. Keep the greenhouse door and window shut as much as possible until the plants start to flower if you are only growing plants that cope well with heat. I only opened my door to go in and water every day before the plants flowered, and my aubergines, peppers and cantaloupe melons seemed perfectly happy with this level of heat. It's meant that I'm now only dealing with a relatively small greenfly infestation on my aubergines.

3. Keep an eye out for infestations and deal with them as soon as you spot them. My aubergines have had greenfly on them this year. I have dealt with these by crushing as many as I could on the leaves between my fingers and thumb (fingers one side of the leaf and thumb the other) - although watch out, aubergine leaves grow occasional spines, so make sure no spines are about to penetrate your skin when you do this. I also sprayed with a mixture of washing-up liquid diluted in plenty of water, because I didn't want to crush new leaf growth between my fingers and also I didn't think I'd squashed all the greenfly despite my best efforts. The washing-up liquid and water approach is a tricky balance. Too little and it won't kill the greenfly, too much and it will damage the leaves. I've erred on the side of not killing enough greenfly, so I still have greenfly, but my aubergines are all still alive and thriving.

4. If you don't have many flowers and don't want to open the door for bees yet. you can pollinate with a paintbrush. I'm pretty sure the purple pepper in this picture is a result of paintbrush pollination. Just brush the paintbrush over the centre of an open flower on one plant and then on the open flower of another plant of the same kind and back.

5. Make sure you fertilise. I've long been feeding my greenhouse plants with liquid seaweed feed once or twice a week. But this year I realised it probably didn't contain enough nitrogen for them, as the lower leaves have been going yellow, which is a sign of nitrogen deficiency, so I supplemented the liquid seaweed feed with chicken manure pellets placed on the top of the compost in the pots and watered in. This seems to have helped a great deal.

6. Grow chrysanthemums in the greenhouse. I should have started mine earlier, so they're not flowering yet. These are supposedly a deterrent to pests (possibly they simply have an overwhelming smell that pests find unattractive), and the greenhouse seemed to have fewer infestations last year when I grew them.

The rest of the garden is also looking good, although further behind where I'd like it to be. Regular evening patrols to collect slugs and snails seem to have helped a great deal and are allowing the garden to fight back from the devastation these caused earlier in the year: