From Garden to Kitchen

I have not managed much in the garden this week.  It has been raining a lot....quite a lot....no, I guess it's an awful lot...  Every Sunday morning I check my rainwater gauge and log the rainfall for the preceding week...  It was actually raining, but only very lightly, when I checked it this morning and recorded 125mm (5inches) of rain since last Sunday......  Like I said a lot of rain.

"From Garden to Kitchen" really refers to me rather than any of my produce...although I did harvest the ends of a few things.

I also managed to sow a pot of batavia lettuce which I'm hoping to persuade to grow even though winter seems to be arriving early this year with temperatures already having dropped to 2C (35F) overnight.

	"From Garden to Kitchen" really refers to me rather than any of my produce...although I did harvest the ends of a few things. We had some guests come to stay so I bought a small whole salmon from the fishmonger and on Friday evening prepared a very simple Baked Salmon with Roasted Vegetables....I think baking the salmon, just wrapped in a little foil and adding only a few herbs allows all the natural flavours to be retained.  The vegetables were drizzled with olive oil and then roasted to make a delicious meal, served with some of my homemade multigrain bread. This morning we took the guests to the weekly market at Issigeac. As I said, it was raining, so the market was virtually empty
	We were able to park easily and buy all that we wanted without queuing.   There were some beautiful local strawberries, still available, which we completely failed to resist and which we shall be eating a little a later for supper. As the cold weather is drawing in now I pulled all the tomato plants out during the week and saved the last few tomatoes.  Mainly they were green with just about a dozen or so tiny red cherry ones which went into the salad bowl. I used the green tomatoes to make my own version of Green Tomato Chutney.
	I love Green Tomato Chutney, and usually manage to make a few jars of it at the end of every tomato season.  This chutney is traditionally made with green tomatoes, apples and onions but for my version I also add figs, sultanas, banana, courgette and garlic.

I simply fill the slow cooker crock with as much of the mixed  vegetables as I can manage, add some sugar and vinegar and then cook for about 12 hours.  I find that the slow cooker allows the chutney to develop a beautiful ,rich, deep, colour.  We have just a couple of jars of last years chutney left so by the time this batch is ready, in a month to six weeks, we'll have completely run out....