Well the Easter weekend has been and gone, and I would like to say a big thank you to the girls for laying such a beautiful selection of eggs for us!  In fact Mrs Hen produced her first double yolker of the year possibly due to the warmer weather and longer days, but it was not destined for the frying pan sadly.  It was so big and heavy that it rolled off of the hen house roof and smashed to the ground …  still hopefully there will be more double yolkers to come.

It really felt Spring like yesterday  …  I had 2 hours to kill, and popped to RHS Wisley to have a wander round the plant centre.  I challenge any keen gardener to visit the shop without spending money!  I bought a Cordyline Australis to replace one that was damaged by the cold winter conditions, and couldn’t resist adding another Hellebore to my collection.  I also got a Snakes Head Fritillary, which has exquisite checkered pinky purple flowers, to add some interest to one of my beds.

I couldn’t wait to get planting, as it was such a sunny afternoon, and as we are due for some settled warmer weather, I decided it was fine now to plant my lettuce seedlings.  I sprinkled a circle of EcoCharlie Natural Slug and Snail Repellent around each plant to protect them from any unwanted visitors to my vegetable patch!  There is one row of parsnips still left in the ground, so I dug up a few, and found some onions still hanging in my potting shed, and ventured into the kitchen to make use of the chicken stock I made at the weekend.

 

As I sit here writing this entry, I am sipping a mug of curried parsnip soup, and it would be rude of me not to share my recipe with you!

CURRIED PARSNIP SOUP

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons Olive Oil

450g Parsnips, cubed

2 fat cloves garlic, crushed

1 large onion, chopped

25g flour

1 tablespoon curry paste

1.2 litres chicken stock

Seasoning

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and add the onions, garlic and parsnips and fry gently for about 10 minutes. Stir in the flour and curry paste and cook for a further minute, and then add the stock and seasoning.  Cover and simmer for about 40 minutes or until the parsnips are tender.  Blitz the soup in a processor or blender, re-check the seasoning, re-heat and serve.

Looking forward to planting out the rest of my chitting potatoes this week  …  still got some rhubarb and gooseberries in the freezer from last Summer; must make some more jam soon….

 

Tags: Garden, Slugs, Summer, Vegetable Patch, Winter

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 at 12:45 pm and is filed under The Good Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.