Taking cuttings from your woody herbs ...

I was supposed to go and see the Rubens exhibition at the Royal Academy today, but it was just too nice outside in my garden to spend the morning cloistered indoors with a bunch of porridgy nudes. I'm convinced the great man must have been a total misogynist: what other reason could there be for him to have painted such lumpy, washed-out, unattractive ladies? Maybe I'm mistaken and they were simply his type. Maybe I'll make it tomorrow ... if the sun's not shining ... and I don't get a better offer.

And so today I've been busy digging in the dirt outside, which, for me, is a total joy at this time of the year. My sage bush is looking its age - a bit like one of Rubens's women, and my rosemary bushes are in danger of getting devoured alive. I love rosemary, and manage to add it to just about everything I cook. So in order to big up my supply lines I've taken some cuttings of both the sage and the rosemary.

In a few weeks' time my rosemary will probably be in flower, and as the sap is rising and the growth hormones are stirring it seems to me that this is probably the perfect moment to take cuttings. And the process is about as easy as tripping over the door mat.

All you need to do is slip off a side shoot of about 5 to 6 cm (2 + inches) from the main stem of your plant. It's not brain surgery so you don't have to be too exact. Just bear in mind that if the cutting is too long it makes it more difficult for the emerging roots to support the whole thing, and get it growing as an independent plant.

The (groovy pink) arrows in the photo above are pointing to suitable side shoots that could be slipped as potentially viable cuttings. And the photo below shows a whole bunch that I've slipped off.

I gathered my little bunch together and put them in a jar of water for a few minutes so that they would stay hydrated, and to ensure that the ends were wet when I put them in the rooting powder. That way a lot more of the powder sticks to them.

I used some special seed and cutting compost for potting them up. It's better than regular compost because it's got a finer texture with better drainage so that the cuttings don't rot before they root, and the finer texture creates less obstacles for nascent root growth. You could make your own. There are hundreds of recipes out there in cyber-land, but I took the easy route and bought some from my local garden centre. 

Now you need to remove all the leaves from the bottom 3cm of each cutting. The idea is not to have any greenery that will sit below the soil line or be in contact with it as it'll probably rot and ruin the chances of your cutting taking root. 

Next  dip the cutting in some rooting powder to help the rooting process along as much as possible. You can buy rooting powder in just about any garden centre. Then using your finger make a hole in the compost at the edge of the pot and plant your cutting, gently firming the compost around it to hold it in place. You should aim to have about a couple of centimetres of the stem below the soil line. Carry on with your other cuttings, planting them all around the edge of the pot, so that they'll be easier to separate after they've taken root and started to grow into independent plants. 

When they are all planted up you need to place them in a sheltered spot and make sure that they stay moist without allowing the soil to get waterlogged. I've place mine on top of one of my larger pots that I have yet to plant up for springtime. The pots with the cuttings will be able to draw a certain amount of moisture from the larger pot beneath, and they'll be able to drain into it as well. 

With any luck I should have enough little plants to share with my friends in town who like to grow cooking herbs on their balconies. 

All the best for now,

Bonny x

Love your leftovers ... Beef and Mushroom pies

The Sunday Roast is a weekly favourite in our house. We love a good roast dinner with all the trimmings. It's a bit of an occasion, and we like to linger around the table, taking our time, putting the world to rights and enjoying what Emi calls golden rainbow family time. It's the one time of the week when no one's in a hurry.

It doesn't matter whether it's beef, chicken, duck, a leg of lamb, or a shoulder of pork; they all taste better for having been slow-roasted in the oven. And ditto too with the veggies and potatoes. My Spanish family rarely cook anything outside of bread, pizza and cakes in their ovens, but over here in Blighty we've always loved our oven-cooked savouries.

One of the great things about this type of cooking is the left-overs. A good roast of beef, like we had last Sunday, can easily be stretched out over a couple of dinners. And what you do with the left-overs can be just as tasty as the main event.

Last night I made these beef and mushroom pies from our Sunday leavings. And they went down a treat with the troops at supper time.

If you'd like to have a go at making some of your own, they're easy and quick to prepare. Here's my recipe, which should produce individual pies for 5 or 6 people (depending on how generous you are with the filling):

Ingredients

My left-over Sunday Roast weighed about 400g after I'd cut off all the bits of fat

250 g sliced mushrooms
2 bay leaves
1 large carrot peeled and sliced into smallish slices
1 large leek, washed and finely sliced
4 toes of garlic finely sliced
200 ml of gravy also left-over from our Sunday dinner - made using the cooking juices from the joint
200 ml red wine
A couple of sprigs of finely chopped thyme
pre-rolled puff pastry
1 egg for an egg-wash (optional: I don't do this as one of my troops has an egg allergy and I can't be faffed trying to remember which pie I haven't put the egg-wash on. It's easier for me to go eggless.)

Method

1. Over a low heat sweat the leeks, carrots and mushrooms in a saucepan with the bay leaves and the thyme and a good glug of olive oil for about 15 minutes. You want them to be soft, but not browned.
2. Add the red wine, and turn the heat up to burn off the alcohol for 5 minutes or so, stirring to make sure that the mixture doesn't catch on the bottom.
3. Add the diced meat and the gravy. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Stir well so that everything's nicely mixed and set to one side (off the heat).
4. Roll out the pastry and cut circles for the bases of your pies and for the tops. I use a pie tray with individual pie moulds that measure 9cm in diameter and have a depth of 6 cm. I think they produce a pie of perfect proportions for each person. Through trial and error I've discovered that if I use a Portmeirion cereal bowl to cut around it makes a perfectly sized circle for the pie casing, and cutting around the base of an Emma Bridgwater mug makes the perfect pastry roof to go on top. Ideally you want your case to sit just a little bit higher than the top of the mould so that you can squish it into the roof to seal the whole thing up, but we'll get to that later.
5. Butter the pie moulds to stop things sticking, and line them with pastry.

6. Spoon the beef and vegetable mixture into your pie cases. Be sure and pick the bay leaves out of the mixture and discard, as they won't make great pie-filling. Place the pastry lids on top, and push them gently into the walls of the cases with the prongs of a fork to seal the edges. Then slice through the top with a knife to make two or three steam vents.

7. If you're doing an egg-wash. Beat your egg and glaze the tops of the pies with the egg mixture using a pastry brush.
8. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 220º C for 20 minutes. Then, without opening the door, turn the heat down to 180º C, and leave them to bake for a further 25 minutes.
9. Remove from the pie moulds with a palette knife and serve with a Greek salad or whatever sort of side-dish takes your fancy.

Enjoy with your nearest and dearest and a decent glass of vino.

All the best for now,

Bonny x

TGI Friday ... 5 Random things ...

Yippee it's Friday ... and the sun is shining ... and tomorrow the mercury is promising that it will push its way up to 14ºC up here in the Big Smoke.

I think Spring may finally have sprung! And not a moment too soon in my book. I so dislike those cheerless grey days of January and February, but now we're into merry old March,  the sap is rising and I'm feeling so much better. There's something to be said for having more daylight as the days lengthen, and there's a lot to be said for the gentle caress of the sun on your face when you venture out of doors.

So, without further ado, here are five random things that have rocked my world this week.

1. Spring Flowers

I'm really enjoying the spring colour that's gently pushing its way through all the drab greyness of winter. Yesterday I collected a whole bunch of lovely blooms for my flower press, and they made my heart skip happily in the bright sunshine. If you'd like to read about flower pressing I've written about it here: Making a Mother's Day Card; and How to press flowers at home.

If you love flowers, pressing is a great way to spread the joy throughout the year. It's such a kick to use your pressed flowers in the grey of winter to spread a little colourful, flowery cheer on cards, book marks or even to compile a pressed bloom journal of all the wonderful colour that grew in your garden the year before.

2. Emi's a girl in the school play

Now this is well to the west of weird in my book: my very boyish son is playing a lady in the school play. His school is all boys so there's always an issue about who plays the female parts. They're staging a version of the Pied Piper and little Emi has been cast as one of the mothers who loses a child. He says he got the part because the Master asked him if he'd mind being a girl, and he said that he'd be happy with any role they gave him. We've had to buy him a dress (weird and getting weirder), and kit him out with a lady's wig and a shawl (off-the-scale weird). When I finally get over myself and stop saying weird  I'm going to embrace the positive and feel happy that he has the self-confidence to feel comfortable playing that part.

3. Slinky Paws, the bandit squirrel, appears to have died through over-consumption of fat balls!

My nemesis, old Slinky Paws, has been conspicuously absent since Monday when he gorged on 3 huge fat balls that I'd hung up for the birds. In my last dispatch from the front I mentioned how the battle lines had been drawn following the Wonder Dog's disastrous encounter with Slinky's left-overs. 

Slinky in action

4. The Wonder Dog has made a remarkable recovery

Happily (for both of us) the Wonder Dog's digestive tract has now fully recovered and he's back to normal service. 

It was SO not my fault!

5. I'm sharing my garden with a goldfinch!

In Slinky's absence I've fallen in love with a little goldfinch who drops by from time to time for some seed. Isn't he just the most adorable little chap?

When I was upping my game against the Slinkster with some squirrel-resistant feeders I bought one that will only dispense seeds to the smaller feathered fraternity, which I'm going to keep stocked up with niger seed for the finches. Apparently they go nuts for niger seed.

And finally I'd like to say Welcome Back! to Nancy at a Rural Journal, who's come back from her sabbatical to resume her Friday Blog Hop. We've missed you Nancy; it's good to have you back.

All the best for a lovely weekend,

Bonny x

As shared on Random Friday

Mother's Day Card ...

Here in the UK we're all set to celebrate Mother's Day on Sunday, 15th March. I think they use different dates in the US and in Australia.

Normally we make a photo card for my mother with some of the funny snap shots that we always seem to have an abundance of in our family. But this year I've also made a card for her using some pressed flowers from the garden.

I started with a blank card, and stamped it with a Just for You! stamp. Then I got to work gluing on my pressed flowers. I use a wood glue that turns transparent when it dries out.

You wouldn't believe that those wonderful red leaves on the card were really the pressed remains of my Christmas poinsettias. I'll let you into a secret: my Christmas poinsettias ended up looking like this:

Shush! Don't tell anyone or Social Services will be after me for cruelty to pot plants. The truth of the matter is that I'm not brilliant at keeping my poinsettias alive, and they rarely make it through to the New Year under my tender care. But the silver lining is that I was able to salvage some red leaves (or are they petals?) to press. I turned them upside down on my card as I thought that the underside with all those wonderful green-tinged veins brought more texture and interest to the composition.

Not very long ago those large pressed flowers in the centre looked like this: 

They're hellebores from my garden. I bought a starter/ mixer pack of six a few years' ago, and they've given me my money's worth ever after with so much colour in the grey months of January and February when there's nothing else in bloom.  I cut these ones a few weeks' ago, and put them in the press wondering how their big fleshy blooms would turn out. And the answer was: beautifully. See what I mean: 

The colours contrast rather well with the poinsettia leaves, don't you think?

The third guest at the party was a dwarf cyclamen, which was growing just beside my front door. I buy cyclamens every year to add a little mid-winter colour to my flowerpots. Once they've done their thing I plant them in the flower bed at the front and they've been rewarding me with colour through the greyest months of the year ever since. 

If you'd like to press some flowers of your own for card-making it's super easy. I made my own press from some bits of plywood using a jigsaw. You can read about it here: how to make a flower press. 

And today, when I had a snoop round the garden to see what was worth foraging for my press, I came up with these beauties: 

Aren't they wonderful? I've got some more hellebores, some primroses, a few dwarf cyclamens and an early flutter of scented violets. I also found these slightly different hellebores, which were so pretty that it felt positively sinful to squeeze them in the press: 

It was a lovely dry, sunny day so I picked them and laid them out straight away as the filling between newspaper and cardboard sandwiches in the press. If there's any rain you'd be best advised to pick your flowers with their stems intact and leave them indoors in a vase of water to dry out for several hours before pressing. If they're damp they're liable to go a bit mouldy in the press.

It's also not a good idea to bunch them too close. If they touch one another they tend to meld together, which will leave them looking strange.

I'll leave these babies to press for a few weeks, and when they're done I'll take them out and see what they inspire me to make.

Maybe I'll make another conventional bouquet, or maybe it'll be the swishy dress for a flower fairy. 

All the best for now,

Bonny x

As shared on Friday Finds

Blueberry Smoothie ... a perfect mid morning pick-me up ...

Yesterday morning did not start brilliantly.

I looked out so see that my adversary, old Slinky Paws, the squirrel, had mounted a dawn raid on my bird feeders. He'd made off with not one, but three fat balls that had been strung to the branches of the plum tree. Now if he'd taken one I'd have shrugged my shoulders and said Fair enough, Slinky. You've got to live too. But the greedy fluffster had snaffled three balls, and only eaten two of them, leaving the third one lying on the ground. In the fullness of time it was retrieved by Maxi the Wonder Dog. Of course he duly gorged on and this new and exotic delight, and made himself very, very sick indeed.

Well ... that was a bridge too far.

By 9:00 a.m. the Wonder Dog was projectile vomiting, and the only vaguely cheerful thought that occurred to me was that if he managed to clear his stomach, messy though the process was, I wouldn't have to worry about the other end of his digestive tract suffering a similar affliction.  Happy Days!

Invoking curses on old Slinkers and all his descendants, I did what the Tough habitually do when the going gets rough: I went shopping.

I cruised down to the local garden centre and loaded up with a couple of squirrel-resistant feeders. I would say squirrel-proof, but that would feel like I was tempting fate. I'm sure old Slinkers has, by this stage, grown a pair of opposable thumbs, and is working on his Mensa application as I type. He'll probably get his fluffy little head around the various locking mechanisms that I'm depending on in a thrice, and, with his manual dexterity and teeth that can gnaw through concrete, there's nothing outside of a nuclear bunker that's going to be totally Slinky-proof.

Anyway, by the time I got back to the ranch, the Wonder Dog was looking a bit more chipper, and I slowly started to feel optimistic about my chances of wresting control of my back garden from my nemesis, the Slinkster. I filled my shiny new bird feeders and strung them up on the plum tree, wondering all the while when he'd show up to do battle again.

Retiring indoors to survey how much the new installations were being appreciated by my little feathered friends I was suddenly hit by an attack of the mid-morning munchies. I'd had breakfast, but clearly not enough breakfast to carry me through all the drama of the morning. These days I am beginning to feel vaguely concerned about fitting into my beach-wear again come the sunny days of the Costa Brava springtime so the biscuit tin, my usual mid-morning nosebag, is firmly off limits.

Instead I made a blueberry smoothie.

 It was perfect, hitting the spot and leaving me feeling just a tiny, little bit virtuous as I sat in the sunshine, waiting for old Slinky Paws to put in an appearance.

If you'd like to make one for yourself it's about as easy as tripping over your shoe laces. You'll need 100 g of frozen blueberries, 150 g of Greek yoghurt and 100 ml of milk. If you're feeling decadent you could mix in a cheeky swig of Cassis as well. Blitz it all in the food processor, pour into a glass and enjoy with some sunshine and a dash of smugness for being so healthy.

And strange to say, but Slinky was conspicuous by his absence all day. If there's any justice in this world he's been lying in his burrow with his paws pointing up to heaven, feeling as healthy as the Wonder Dog did.

All the best for now,

Bonny x