waffles with whipped cream and jelly of elderberries

Finally we had our first big potato harvest. It was a beautiful day, sunny and dry, Thomas spent the morning in the garden and proudly presented the fruits of success: about 25 kilos of gorgeous-looking potatoes. He was sweaty and full of dirt but..gee!…he looked so damn happy.

our own potatoes

Now we store them in my dad’s workshop where it’s cold and dark and every time I see them I have to smile. Never ever in my entire life I would have imagined that I could possibly have such strong feelings for comparatively shabby dirty fellas. I always loved eating them though and last week we had them in four variations: mash, salad, simply boiled and potato fritters.

Jamie's potato salad with smoked salmon

The salad is from Jamie Oliver’s “Jamie At Home” book  and you serve it with smoked salmon and horseradish sauce, it really is delicious and one of our all-time favourites http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fish-recipes/potato-salad-with-smoked-salmon-and-hors For the fritters you have to peel and grate 1kg of potatoes, 1 sour apple and 2 onions. Take a dipper and skim the “water” which comes out of the potatoes. Add one big egg and season with salt and pepper. Heat resolidified butter or vegetable oil in a pan and put dough for three fritters into the hot oil and press them with a tablespoon because they’re best when thin and crispy. Bake them about 3-5 minutes on each side and put them on a grid with kitchen paper in order to drain the oil. It really depends on your personal gusto whether you want to eat them with apple sauce or salmon and pumpernickel (a dark brown bread) or sugar beet molasses, these are common combinations. We made a quick sauce which was great for a summer day: put 250g crème fraîche in a midsize bowl, then whip 150g cream in a narrow container and fold slowly into the crème fraîche. Finally add a bunch of chives (freshly chopped) and season with salt and pepper.

potato fritters with creamy crème fraîche

Sometimes it feels like nature’s conspiracy against laziness. After the potatoes there were lots of rhubarb (I don’t think August is “rhubarb time” but we planted it quite late so we’ll probably end up having the last bits for Christmas) and elderberries.

Rhubarb Strawberry Jam

We decided to make rhubarb-strawberry jam and elderflower jelly. Did you ever reap and prepare elderberries?

naughty little things: elderberries

It’s pure torture and I suggest it as an official penalty for white collar criminals, i.e. for those who committed tax evasion big time. All these corrupt politicians and financial managers usually get away so easily by paying high fines which for them aren’t painful. I’m convinced there would be much less repeaters if they had to reap several kilos of elderberries and make jelly out of it. I like the idea and will write a letter to the ministry of justice tomorrow. For those who don’t understand…there are millions of little berries which cling firmly to the petioles. You have to remove them with a fork and seperate the green ones out. Oh, did I mention that their juice lasts longer on your skin than a tattoo? Anyway, the final result is incredibly tasty. And who knows, if the ministry is open for new ideas there should be tons of it in supermarkets soon.

Schliersee

We went to Schliersee in Bavaria the other day in order to pick up Thomas’ daughter from her holidays on a farm. Although the drive was quite long and we only stayed over one night it was a recreation and we enjoyed the Bavarian weather, food and beer. We had breakfast outside together with a cattleherd and in this moment it was impossible to think about anything else than love, peace and harmony. Maybe all heads of state should have their breakfast in the neighborhood of ringing cowbells and the world would be a better place.

breakfast in the mountains

our breakfast "room"

Before you think this post is all about naive philosophies of life let me switch over from chilling in Bavaria to chilis in our backyard.

Red hot chili peppers

German summers are quite rainy and we only have a couple of days with tropical heat, the rest is more like what in other European countries is called spring. When we bought the Jalapeño plant we both weren’t convinced that it will grow in the garden but 1. we love cooking with chili, 2. it wasn’t expensive and 3. we could still bring it inside and put it on the windowsill once it starts looking unhealthy. Thomas got a chili plant (amongst many others like peppers, tomatoes, Brussels sprouts, salad etc.) for his birthday and we expected neither of them to survive. Little did we know that soon we’d have almost a hundred chilis and jalapeños. They’re all coming out now and while I was thinking that green chilis turn red if you don’t pick them before I’m wondering why some are already red as fire the moment they see the light. This is when we realize that we’re absolute garden beginners. Somebody said that it’s a myth that the heat is in the seed of the pod. Regardless whether it’s a myth or not, it definitely is milder if you cook it without the seed. Once my entire mouth starts burning and breathing gets almost impossible I’m willing to believe in many myths. I’m still looking for jalapeño recipes and found some good ones on  www.jalapenomadness.com (like grilled jalapeño poppers…mmmhh) but if you have other ideas leave a comment, please. In the meantime I’ll try not to put them into every meal.

Jalapeño

our first potatoes from the garden

It’s very impressive how many potatoes come out of simply putting a single one into the ground. And you don’t have to do anything but water them and protect them from daylight by earthing them up once or twice. In the next 2-6 weeks all of them will be ripe and we’re so much looking forward to it. Here’s one of our favourite recipes for roast potatoes in the oven. Wash and quarter the potatoes (peel if needed) and put them into a bowl with a marinade made of olive oil, sliced garlic, sea salt, black pepper, rosemary and season with dried chili flakes. Mingle everything with your hands and put it on a baking tray into the preheated oven (160°C), about 30-40 minutes and you’ll have lovely crispy potatoes which are great with most meat, fish or a nice yoghurt dip and bread. We had ours for dinner with chicken breast (with home made breadcrumbs) the other day, simple and yummy, that’s how we like it.

crispy oven potatoes with chicken

This Every summer here is so unsettled. What was wrong with July and August being hot, tons of ice-tea for everyone and millions of kids in public pools? Since a couple of years it’s always the same: spring is nice and warm and then everybody’s waiting for summer to come. While you’re still waiting one morning you wake up and it’s September and autumn’s nearly there. This year again, we already had a couple of very hot days which alternate with cold rainy days. Sounds like perfect garden weather but unfortunately both come excessively. Our first carrots died due to dryness (thank god we both have jobs and can’t water them every two hours) and the 2nd generation nearly drowned in a sequence of thunderstorms. Right now everything looks good and after we finished eating our peas and beans we’re getting prepared for tons of courgettes and tomatoes.

green tomatoes

Luckily we discover interesting recipes for both here and there but any hints for preserving them ( maybe with a special kick) are very welcome.

young bean plants

Waiting for vegetables in your own garden for the first time is like having a fondue when you’re starving. First it seems so slow and you think it’ll never come to any satisfaction.

I can tell you, there’s nothing worse than staring at darkbrown soil, waiting for some green stuff to see the sunlight, only to realize that it’s the old boy “Giersch” again. On the other hand you feel supernatural when you descry the first sign of peas or beans or any other vegetable you planted.

climbing peas

peas

We’re so excited, the peas and the beans came out some days ago and already started wrapping themselves around the wooden limbs Thomas has been putting into the ground in especially for that.
The long awaited potatoe plants however are unstoppable now. I’m not exaggerating when I say that some of them are going up to my hips now (and yes, I’m not incredibly long-legged but I’m not a midget either).

potato fields forever

Is this normal? While shooting up so fast, do they have enough energy left for millions of subterranean fruit? Or will we have to eat the green with our steak?

Next to all the vegetables are the garden beauties of the month of May: The poppy flowers come back every year and next to them everything looks pale and unimposing.

sleeping beauty

poppy flower in bloom

beauty queen for a day

young potatoe plant

We talked about having our homegrown vegetables many times but then winter came and it was too cold to do anything. This spring Thomas was in the right mood for a lot of open air work. The part of the garden we were looking at was a total mess because my dad couldn’t take care of it since a couple of years anymore, it’s too much work for him.

The final push came when we were watching the Jamie Oliver dvd “Jamie At Home” where he’s growing everything in his garden and it looked so easy that we decided: Yes, we can!
It took many hours and a lot of sweat to dig the garden over and to remove weeds…evil weeds…called “Giersch” or “Geißfuß”. Some say that you’ll never get rid of it but Thomas is at war with it and fully concentrated on its extermination. We all love eating potatoes (yes, very German ; ) and so it became the first vegetable we planted. We bought 3 different sorts of potatoes and are so excited about our first crop. It took a little while but now the green is already 20-30cm high and Thomas yesterday already had to earth them up because you have to protect them against light. As soon as the potatoes see the sunlight they turn green and become uneatable. As you can imagine we now look every day, before and after work, whether there’s enough soil to cover our babies.

potatoe plant in bloom