Bobby Beans – Chica Andaluza

Green Summer Vegetable and Chicken Casserole

October 18, 2011 Chica Andaluza41 Comments

Now that we are starting to have a little drop in temperatures during the day, and a nip in the air first thing in the morning and last thing at night, we know that autumn is just around the corner. While this means saying a gradual farewell to summer, it also means an autumnal welcome to the next season and the food and change in cooking it brings.

Off out for a busy morning and knowing I was not going to be in the house while it was still relatively warm, prompted me to cook the first casserole for a long time. We came home to delicious chicken, vegetable and brothy smells and apart from opening the wine and grabbing the loaf of bread left for us earlier that morning on the gate by Bread Man, there was nothing more for us to do other than set the table and enjoy lunch.

The dish was a celebration of almost the last of many of our summer vegetables. The bobby (french) beans finally started producing yellow as well as green beans, with kilos of them stored in the freezer for the months ahead. The green peppers are still doing well, we´ll see how much longer they last. Our onions have dried out nicely and are sweet and delicious and I had been hoarding the last handful of potatoes we had left from our first ever potato crop.

Into a big pot went two large legs (drumstick and thigh) of our free range chicken, some chopped peeled potatoes, large chunks of courgette given to us by a neighbour along with some whole unpeeled garlic cloves. A few chopped green peppers, a roughly chopped onion, a few handfuls of green beans and some seasoning finished off the ingredients. I covered everything with water and bought it to the boil then put a lid on the pot which then went into a very low oven for about 5 hours. You could, of course, cook it much more quickly on the stove top with equally good results if you´re not off out shopping for the morning!

And that was it…memories of summer and anticipation of autumn all in one delicious bowlful.

Am off to London to visit my family tomorrow for a week. Will try to keep up with all your lovely blogs and posts, but apologies if I can´t always comment. Looking forward to a proper catch up when I return!

Preserved Tomatoes – Conserva de Tomates

July 31, 2011 Chica Andaluza37 Comments

: Ready for a winter debut

Well, summer is here and I finally have my first glut of tomatoes.

We also picked runner beans last night, although they are coming to an end now.

And the first of our bobby or French beans. I planted two varieties, one green and one yellow, but so far I´m only seeing green ones!

Tomates 008 — ´Allo, I am Claude and zis eez mon ami Bobby...

Because we don´t use insecticides or nasty sprays, some of our tomatoes look a little quirky, but we don´t mind that. It makes us love them all the more…

Time to start laying some by in jars for the winter months. Last year I made what seemed like enough for the whole village, but by the end of April we ran out. I am on a mission this year to make enough to last us until next summer. It is a little bit of effort, but we have so many tomato plants and have also just done a second planting, that it makes sense to do it and enjoy all our hard work in the colder months.

For a great idea on how to use your tomato sauce, and also the way I make mine, head over to Tales of Ambrosia for a delicious aubergine and tomato sauce dish.

I started by cutting small crosses in my washed tomatoes.

Then I blanched them for a minute or two in boiling water.

After peeling and coring them I put them into my food mouli (although sometimes when I´m pressed for time I just blitz them with the hand blender).

The mouli, if that´s the correct word in English, is a hand held vegetable mill and gets rid of any tough bits and seeds.

Every so often you´ll need to empty out the bits you´re left with. You can either use these in soups or sauces or if you have chickens, like us, they love them as a special treat.

Tomates 014 — Your chickies will thank you!

You´ll be left with a purée of tomatoes which you can now freeze, use or bottle (can).

When I am going to bottle or can them, I add half a teaspoon of salt per litre of tomato and heat gently until just bubbling.

This then goes into sterilized jars which are tightly sealed then left to simmer in a bain marie for about 10 minutes and then left to cool down.

Today, as I had been cutting back my basil which is getting a bit overgrown, I added a spring of basil into each jar too.

Now put the jars away in a cool dark place and on a dull grey day, a few months ahead, you´ll be so glad you invested a little time on a hot summer´s day doing this!

The Vegetable Patch – 9 Weeks On

July 12, 2011 Chica Andaluza37 Comments

Veggies & Mediterranean Layer 009 — This evening´s harvest

I can´t believe that I´ve been picking veggies and not bragging about it!

Today we finally picked our first red tomatoes…hurrah! We were late planting, but now that they´ve kicked in, there will be no stopping us for quite a few months now. Am planning salads, sauces, sun dried tomatoes and goodness knows what else. My plum tomatoes (or roma) are getting huge, but still frustratingly refuse to turn red.

Veggies & Mediterranean Layer 012 — Please do the decent thing and turn red soon!

We planted 18 runner bean plants this year (as opposed to the totally ridiculous 60 last year) and have been picking them almost daily for about 3 weeks now. We´ve still got a way to go with them, but thanks to my nifty runner bean slicer, we´re enjoying beans and freezing them too for later.

The aubergines are ripening and I´ve started to pick them quite small. Later I´ll leave them to get a little larger, but I couldn´t hold back.

Our long thin green peppers which are great for gazpacho are now being picked every couple of days. They´re also wonderful deep fried (stuffed or not) in olive oil and just sprinkled with salt. Our bell peppers are growing well, but need some more time to get bigger and then red.

The dwarf beans we planted a couple of weeks ago are all in flower, so it won´t be long now until they´re producing little bobby beans for us. I´m quite excited as I´ve planted two varieties, one green and one yellow. I´m sure they´ll taste pretty much the same but they´ll look extra pretty!

Veggies & Mediterranean Layer 011 — Our little bobby beans...

Our Spanish radishes, which are long as opposed to round, are doing great. We pick a couple each day and they have a good bite to them. We´ll probably plant a few more as they come up from seed so quickly.

And our little Spanish cucumbers are doing well. We grew them from seeds from a cucumber we saved last year. The cucumber had come from plants that our neighbour Diego gave us from seeds of his own – so these are several generations old. It´s good to have a little bit of history in the garden!

Our chard flourishes, I keep giving bunches of it away, but will do something this week with it for us. And our celery is slowly but surely getting bigger.

Veggies & Mediterranean Layer 013 — Very Happy Chard

We have other things going on in the vegetable patch, and I´ll take some pics as the become ready. I do have to mention our little vines. Big Man is very rightly proud of our muscat grapes which are now trained over the kitchen window. They look amazing, we had to remove some as we had so many bunches but they would never have all ripened. Am looking forward to grapes in September and drying some for Christmas too.