New Year's treat - Raspberry Muffins

 Raspberry muffins (and raspberry jam and redcurrant jelly)

  
I have been too busy gardening, and entertaining friends and family to treats from the garden, to do any blogging lately. I have also been harvesting raspberries every 2-3 days since December 12 - 7.5 kg so far. We eat them for breakfast and for dessert, and I have made ten jars of jam. I have also made two batches of raspberry muffins, which are very popular with visitors, so I am sharing my recipe (below). 


Raspberries have a short season (mid December to late January) so now is the time to enjoy them often. They don't keep well. If you have picked or bought more than you can eat at one time, put them (unwashed) into a leak-proof shallow glass or plastic container (I use a Pyrex baking dish which has a plastic lid). Add the raspberries to the container one layer at a time, sprinkling white sugar between each layer, then put the container in the fridge. If the raspberries are all good specimens (remove any manky or rotting ones before storing) they will keep reasonably well this way for up to a week, although they will give off a lot of juice and start to collapse. Such raspberries are best used for jam or baking, rather than eaten raw in that most simple but delicious of desserts, Raspberries and Cream. 

This dessert needs no tarting up if the raspberries are fresh and perfect, except perhaps a little caster sugar mixed into the raspberries half an hour before consumption. However, if you do wish to gild the lily, then marinating the raspberries in either elderflower cordial ( 1 T neat cordial to 300g raspberries) OR freshly-squeezed orange juice adds extra flavour and sweetness. The further addition of teaspoon or two of rum OR kirsch OR an orange liqueur creates another layer of delight. 

Raspberry muffins get the cream treatment

 

RASPBERRY MUFFINS

Ingredients

1 large egg

1/2 C mild oil

1/4 C melted butter OR sour cream

grated rind and juice of 1 large orange (1/2 C juice)

1/2 C yoghurt

1 1/2 C fresh raspberries

2 C flour

2 t baking powder

1/2 C sugar

1/4 t salt

Method

Heat the oven to 210 d.C; put rack just below the middle.

Grease muffin tins well (12 large or 24 small).

In a large bowl, mix together all the wet ingredients.

Fold in the berries, gently.

Sift together the dry ingredients.

Mix them quickly into the wet ingredients.

Spoon into muffin tins.

Bake 12-15 minutes.

Cool in the tins 5 minutes before cooling on a rack.

To serve: Dust with icing sugar sifted through a sieve and top with a raspberry; OR (fancier version) split across the centre of the top, dust with icing sugar, fill the split with whipped cream, top with a raspberry.

The REAL Giant Rhubarb - exposed in Wikileaks?

Did this plant.....

                                                                    Rheum rhabarbarum x giganticum      

 .....escape from here? 





  



The Devonport naval base - 
HMNZS Endeavour in port


I have just received a communication regarding my post of December 17 on the Giant rhubarb stalk-ing Devonport from the international security expert Dr Micheál Macfhionnlaoich, who specialises in botanical threats. He suggested that my identification of the Gigantic Rhubarb in Maud's garden (which I had taken to be the known but utterly natural threat Rheum rhabarbarum  x giganticum) might be mistaken. He believes there is a possibility that the plant could be from a strain of genetically-engineered bio-warfare plants being secretly bred at the nearby Devonport Naval Base.

This was news to me, but apparently there are references to giant rhubarb in the Wikileaks communications pertaining to New Zealand, which Dr Macfhionnlaoich has been studying. The Botanical Attache at the US embassy in Wellington (whose principal role is to facilitate the acceptance of genetically-engineered seeds and plants in New Zealand, by means of the dissemination of one-sided information and lavish hospitality and gifts to agri-businesspersons and politicians) also has the additional but usually minor role of reporting on New Zealand's genetic engineering activities back to Washington.

She has already had occasion to note to her political masters that the bio-security arrangements for New Zealand's genetic engineering experiments are generally woefully lax, and have been breached on numerous occasions. While this is not of any concern to the American administration, they would however be perturbed if New Zealand were developing bio-warfare capabilities using American technologies (and patented ones at that). This concern led the Botanical Attache to speculate, in one of the cables leaked by Wikileaks, that the breeding of especially sensitive GE plants, including potential bio-warfare plants such as the giant rhubarb, would most likely be carried out in genuinely high-security facilities, such as military bases. The Devonport naval base was her first pick for such a facility in New Zealand. This was both for the number of large old buildings which could be converted for contained plant breeding purposes, without anyone suspecting that a change of use had occurred, and also for its proximity to plant materials arriving in the Port of Auckland without adequate inspection.

Dr Macfhionnlaoich expressed scepticism at the Botanical Attache's line of reasoning, but did not rule out the possibility entirely. He advised obtaining samples of the scary plant in question, and having its DNA analysed, as this would provide definitive proof one way or the other. Unfortunately this is very expensive. (Moonshine Laboratories in nearby Takapuna, for example, quoted $114,615 plus GST to do the job. This turned out to be one of the lower quotes, but still way beyond the means of a humble bookseller.) So unless public (or American) support for the exercise is forthcoming we will never know the truth behind the mysteriously gigantic plant in Maud's backyard. It may be harmless – or it may be an even bigger menace than first suspected. I have therefore urged Maud to err on the side of caution, and destroy it now, before it breeds (if it can).

                           Beautiful Devonport - but for how much longer?

Spice-Crusted Baby Potatoes with Yoghurt Sauce

The harvest from one plant of Jersey Bennes, planted 

on the 12th of September and dug on the 5th of December.

Baby new potatoes are a seasonal treat at this time of year. My favourite new potato varieties are Jersey Bennes and Cliff's Kidney. I planted both varieties in early September, and began harvesting them in the first week of December. We have been enjoying them boiled and tossed in butter with chopped herbs, boiled and then sliced into rounds and fried, in a salad with dill mayonnaise, in a frittata with zucchini, and crusted with spices and dressed with a yoghurt sauce.

This last recipe I found in Vegetarian Party Food by Celia Brooks Brown (Pavilion Books, 2003), a book which is full of many mouthwatering entertaining options, from nibbles to full dinners. The spice-crusted baby potatoes in the original recipe are served with a tamarind cream on the side, and are dunked into it – fine eating at a drinks party. I didn't have tamarind or crème fraiche to hand when I made the recipe the first time, and found that natural yoghurt and lemon juice make a good dunking sauce as well, or a tasty dressing, so that the potatoes can be served as a warm or cool salad.

The recipe below gives both options, although if you are serving this dish in India, or to Indians, my friend Shiv insists that you call the recipe Masala-Crusted Potatoes with Raita. Enjoy either way!

                    A platter of Spice-Crusted Potatoes and Yoghurt Sauce

ready to go to the Port Levy community Christmas party. 

SPICE-CRUSTED BABY POTATOES WITH YOGHURT SAUCE

Ingredients

1 kg baby new potatoes, scrubbed

1 T coriander seeds

1 T cumin seeds

1/4 t celery seed (optional)

1/2 t ground turmeric

1/4 - 1/2 t cayenne pepper (to taste)

1 t salt

3 T light olive oil

1 T wine vinegar

200 ml natural creamy yogurt

OR

100 ml natural yogurt AND 100 ml creme fraiche OR sour cream

1 T lemon juice

OR 2 T thick tamarind liquid

(made by soaking a chunk of dried tamarind pulp in water, then squeezing it through a sieve)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C.

2. Parboil the potatoes in well-salted water for 5-10 minutes.

3. Grind the coriander and cumin seeds together (and celery seed, if using).

4. Whisk the oil and vinegar together.

5. Whisk all the spices and the salt into in the oil and vinegar mix.

6. Drain the potatoes, cool them, and pat them dry with a towel.

7. Spread the potatoes in a roasting pan, halving any larger ones so that they are  all the same size.

8. Pour the oil mix over the potatoes and roll them in it.

9. Roast the potatoes for 15-20 minutes, until tender, turning once or twice.

10. Gently put the potatoes into a serving bowl, and keep warm.

11. While the potatoes are roasting, mix together the yoghurt (and cream) and lemon juice (OR tamarind liquid).

12. When the potatoes are cooked and in their serving bowl, stir the left-over roasted spices from the roasting pan into the yoghurt mix.

To serve

EITHER pour the yoghurt sauce over the potatoes and mix a little and serve as part of a meal

OR

put the sauce into a separate bowl and provide toothpicks for dipping the potatoes into it as part of nibbles at a party.

A(nother) New Zealand Christmas Tree

A kanuka branch Christmas tree in our living room, Christmas 2007.

The native New Zealand Christmas tree is commonly considered to be the pohutakawa (Metrosideros excelsa). This special tree certainly does put on a fabulous display of blazing red flowers in mid to late December. The trouble is, it only does this naturally along the coastlines of northern New Zealand. Everywhere else in the country where pohutukawa are found, including where I live on Banks Peninsula, they have been introduced, and will not necessarily flower in time for Christmas.

In any case, it would be a pity to cut off huge branches of this already well-decorated tree, bring them indoors, and load them with superfluous ornaments. I prefer to arrange smaller branches in a big flower vase with long stems of the (non-native) Christmas lily, Lilium regale. This gives a good showing of the 'Christmas' colours of red, white and green, plus a lovely scent as well.

For my native Christmas tree I cut a long, thick branch of the tree which flowers prolifically at Christmas time in these parts, dusting itself and the hillsides where it grows in white blossom.

A branch of kanuka (Kunzea ericoides) in flower can be easily propped up with rocks or wood in a tall flowerpot. Decorated with a few red or red tartan bows or paper chains, the classic red/green/white Christmas combination is achieved with very little trouble and expense. (Perhaps also with more beauty - and certainly more originality - than Pinus radiata plus blinking electric lights.)

Kanuka is an under-appreciated tree in my view, for lots of reasons, including its important role in stabilising hillsides and providing a nursery for regenerating the grand trees of the New Zealand forest, like totara and matai. So why not express some appreciation, and get to know it better, by giving it a special place in the house once a year?

 A kanuka in full bloom on a local farm last week.

Giant rhubarb stalk-ing Devonport

The fearsome Gigantic Rhubarb,

at the start of its campaign 

to dominate Devonport.

My friend Maud (proprietor of Jason Books and purveyor of excellent pre-loved gardening books) has been so busy with her moving sale recently that she has not had time to tend to her garden.

A big mistake. The rhubarb seedling she planted four weeks ago (I think she got it from Jack the Jolly Green Giant-killer's Plant Barn) turned out to be not ordinary rhubarb, but Rheum rhabarbarum x giganticum! 

This plant is native to the Caucasus mountains, but spread into north-east Asia some six to seven hundred years ago, carried overland in the great camel caravans of the spice and carpet traders. It is a key ingredient of the popular North Korean sweet-and-sour pickle, chi-kim, and almost the only dessert 'fruit' available in Mongolia. 

The harsh climate in these places keeps the plant in check, so until recently the rest of the world had no idea what a menace it could be in more temperate climes, although it began to create problems in the northern and central provinces of China around the middle of last century. These have got a lot worse recently as peasant farmers have been pushed off the land and into urban areas, with the result that the land is not as well looked after as it used to be.

Of course it is on the banned list for New Zealand, but since we started importing most of the manufactured goods consumed here from Asia we have seen an explosion of biosecurity nightmares, both animal and vegetable. R. rhabarbarum x giganticum is but the latest of these. It is arguably not as harmful as varroa bee mite or other recent insect invaders, but it could become the nemesis of home gardeners who go away for a holiday and return to find that the little rhubarb plant they put in before they went away has smothered every other plant in the garden - and moved in on the neighbours' gardens. 

I am hunting out every rhubarb recipe I have to help Maud keep this vicious vegetable in check, but I just can not see her having time to make Caramelised Rhubarb Chutney every week, delicious though it is. Nor is her family large enough to eat all this plant is capable of producing, so realistically the plant will have to go, before it creates trouble with the neighbours. Also before it requires hiring a chainsaw to cut it down and a digger to remove the roots. 

When young, R. rhabarbarum x giganticum is easily mistaken for regular rhubarb, which means it may innocently be on sale at a garden centre near you. If you inadvertently buy such a plant, please advise the vendor at once, and help root out this rhubarbarian! 

 The Gigantic Rhubarb has almost smothered leeks planted
at the same time, and has annihilated the parsnips.
Who's next?!

Scones for a Summer Afternoon Tea

Herb & Parmesan Scones and Raspberry Scones on the garden tea table.

Guests for afternoon tea yesterday afternoon coincided with the first ripe raspberries of the season. (Now that they are safely netted, although that does not stop bold thrushes from having a go at the ones on the edges of the raspberry patch.)

There were enough raspberries to make and decorate raspberry scones, and also enough last season's raspberry jam left to spread them with. Since I was making scones I decided to make a split batch, flavoring the other half with herbs and Parmesan cheese. Here's how I did it.

RASPBERRY SCONES / HERB & PARMESAN SCONES

Ingredients

4 cups flour

4 t baking powder

large pinch salt

50 g butter, cut in small chunks

2 cups milk (approx)

For the Herb & Parmesan Scones

4 T grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 t mustard powder

1/4 t salt

large pinch cayenne pepper

2-3 T chives, finely chopped, and/or pizza thyme leaves

For the Raspberry Scones

12-15 raspberries

1 T sugar

3-4 T natural yogurt (or honey-flavoured yogurt)

Method(s)

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C; grease a large oven tray.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together.

Rub the butter into the dry ingredients (or whizz it in, using a food processor).

For the Herb & Parmesan Scones

Mix in the cheese, mustard powder, salt, cayenne pepper and chives.

Mix in around a cup of milk, to make a soft but not sticky dough.

On a well-floured board, roll out the dough lightly until 3 cm high.

Cut out round scones with a cookie cutter, and put them on one half of a

well-greased oven tray.

For the Raspberry Scones

Stir the raspberries and sugar into the flour mixture.

Mix in the yogurt and around a cup of milk, to make a soft dough.

On a well-floured board, pat out a large square of dough.

Cut it into 9 or 12 scones, and put them on the other half of the oven tray.

Bake the scones in the top part of the oven (second highest rack) for 10-12 minutes.

To Serve

For the Herb & Parmesan Scones

Cut in two and butter with Herb Butter (finely-chopped parsley and/or other herbs mixed into soft butter).

For the Raspberry Scones

Spread with raspberry jam, top with whipped cream and a whole raspberry.

TWO TIPS FOR REALLY LIGHT SCONES

1. Use a soured liquid - soured milk or cream, yogurt. (Sour milk or cream with a tablespoon of lemon juice, or use milk or cream that has just gone off.)

2. Mix in the liquid and form the scones lightly and quickly; get them into the oven as quickly as possible.

The Wild Rose of Wellington

 Rose 'Alberic Barbier' growing out of the hedge. 

In the heart of Wellington, scrambling over dry banks and rock walls in Mt Victoria, Thorndon, and other inner suburbs, a beautiful old rose has gone wild. One hundred and ten years ago the French rose breeder Alberic Barbier produced this sweet but very hardy rose, and named it for himself.

It is a hybrid bred from the Chinese species rose, Rosa wichuraiana, and R. 'Shirley Hibbard'. It is a rambler with small and very glossy green leaves, not many thorns, and small cream flowers which are lightly apple-scented. It flowers profusely in early summer, and has occasional flowers through to autumn.

R. wichuraiana is a parent of several other excellent climbing roses. The three that I grow are 'New Dawn', 'Sanders White' and 'Albertine'. They are all healthy, hardy roses, and 'Albertine' has an especially delicious scent.

When I lived in Mt Victoria in the early 1980s I did not know what 'Alberic Barbier' was called. I just enjoyed it immensely, wherever it beautified an otherwise neglected spot. Even better, because it was wild, and so prolific, I could take a few buds home for a vase without feeling like I was depriving the plant, or my neighbours.

Eventually I found out what it was called so that I could grow it in my own garden, as soon as I had one large enough for its rambling ways. I planted it under the Olearia paniculata hedge, beside the garden gate, and now it scrambles happily up through the hedge and covers it in a shower of cream flowers in early December. When the hedge gets its annual cut, so does the rose - and it comes back even stronger the next year.

I would not, of course, advocate that anyone tries to naturalise a rose in the wild (even the suburban 'wild) in NZ these days, but given that 'Alberic Barbier' is so beautiful, and pretty well-behaved, I am glad that it enhances the old parts of Wellington at this time of year. 

 'Alberic Barbier' covers the hedge.

Naked tomatoes talk about...the chives?

This 'Sweet 100' grafted tomato plant went into the glasshouse

in the first week of September and had its first ripe tomatoes

by the last week of November. 

Was this due to its friendly underground relationship 

with the basil, nasturtiums and lettuce nearby?

Organic growers have long known of the importance of soil organisms like
mycorrhizae  (the thin threads of fungi that connect to the roots of plants) in stimulating growth and protecting the health of individual plants. Mycorrhizae also connect plants to each other below ground. This can occur over remarkable distances, such as a whole forest, where one tree can be linked to dozens of others, over distances as great as 30 metres.

Why are mycorrhizae important? They transport water and minerals to the roots of plants, in exchange for some nutrients. Their role in the transport of phosphorus, a key element for plant growth, is especially important. Plants growing in soil rich in mycorrhizae grow better than plants in soil without them. Given the damage that artificial fertilisers can do to the environment (and the fact that many of them are derived from non-renewable resources such as natural gas and phosphate rock) knowing more about how mycorrhizae naturally contribute to plant growth and health is very useful.

It now seems that this is not just due to better mineral uptake, but also because the mycorrhizae actively communicate 'messages' between plants, enabling them to adjust to environmental stresses better. In an experiment conducted by Ren Sen Zeng and colleagues at the South China Agricultural College in Guangzhou (reported by Michael Marshall in New Scientist, 13 November 2010, p. 14) tomato plants were grown in pairs in pots. Some were allowed to develop mycorrhizal networks between their roots and others were prevented from doing so. Then one plant in each pot was sprayed with a blight-causing fungus. Plants which shared a mycorrhizal network were less likely to develop the blight. If they got it, their symptoms were less severe, and they were also more likely to activate defensive genes and enzymes.

The researchers concluded that the plants were signalling to each other, using the mycorrhizae as their 'internet'. No experiments outside the lab have been done yet to check if these results hold for the real world (or whether something else could be going on) but it is a very interesting and promising line of enquiry. The science of understanding nature well enough to nudge it in the direction desired by humans, with almost no expenditure of energy or money, and no negative environmental consequences, is much more exciting to me than twisting nature to human ends using lots of energy and finance, and compromising the natural environment in the process.

 These tomatoes were planted out on October 24, 

and photographed a month later.

I am sure they are chatting among themselves,

as they are growing really well.

A Rose Ramble

Scented roses from the garden on my work desk.

The last week of November is peak rose season in my pleasure garden.
Last time I counted, I had over fifty different varieties, and I expect to make room for more. They scramble up trees, hedges, trellises and arches, they grace beds and borders, and they fill vases in the house. Best of all, their scent wafts through the garden and house. I don't have room for scentless roses; I regard them as a sort of low-fat icecream of the plant world. All looks and no savour. Roses should be inhaled as well as seen.

French rose breeders seem to have traditionally understood this truth about roses better than English ones - or at least until David Austin began breeding his now famous line of new but old-fashioned looking 'English' roses, which are mostly scented.

I am currently in love with the nineteenth century French climbing Tea rose 'Sombreuil', which took a while to get is roots down and start climbing up its arch, but now looks and smells so good, it was worth the wait. Also delicious is another old French rose, the Portland Damask rose 'Comte de Chambord', which makes a small, neat shrub and flowers repeatedly.

Sombreuil

                Comte de Chambord









     
One of my favourite Austin roses is 'Sweet Juliet', both for her subtle colours and her sweet scent.                                                              

                                                 Sweet Juliet

One of the best tall shrub roses for my money is the Hybrid Musk 'Buff Beauty'. It grew taller than me in just three years and is a cascade of scented pale apricot flowers at present. The Austin rose 'Eglantyne' is not so tall, but its flowers are bigger and strongly scented. I like to grow this rose not just for its looks and scent, but also because it was named for Eglantyne Jebb, the big-hearted and hard-working founder of the charity Save the Children.

Buff Beauty

                              Eglantyne











Some people think roses are a lot of work because they need heaps of care - pruning, feeding, and pest and disease prevention or control. This may be true for the Hybrid Tea bush roses which once dominated the rose garden landscape, but it is not true for hundreds and hundreds of other roses - which are also much more gorgeous to look at and to smell. I occasionally remember to feed my roses with sheep pellets or other organic fertiliser; I squirt aphids off the buds with a hose if I see them; and I ignore black spot and other things that some people strangely think is a good reason for bringing stinky, dangerous poison into the garden. My favourite Bourbon rose, 'Mme Pierre Oger', is currently covered in black spot - and also in roses. Guess which one I see.

Just two roses can scent a hallway if you choose the right ones.

'Albertine' is a really good choice.