Garlicky chicken, roast turnips and turnip greens… hooray for the garden!

Abbie was really keen to get out in the garden today after spotting all the strawberries on our plants. Whilst we were there, we thought we would see how our garlic was doing as well as I had heard about ‘green’ garlic, which just means that you pick it whilst the leaves are still green instead of wilted. You can see that our looking turned to pulling!

Ta da!

I separated the cloves from the stems. I put the stems into the cavity of the chicken (instead of herbs)before roasting. I boiled the cloves, with a head of cloves from a garlic I already had, for 5 mins and then put them in the roasting tray for the last 15 mins. Whilst the chicken was resting (I took out the ‘green’ garlic for us to eat), I made a gravy by adding a glass of wine to the roasting pan, squashing the soft cloves into the juices and the boiling to evaporate the alcohol. I then sieved this into a jug, squishing the wonderful garlicky flavours through the mesh! An amazing gravy – no thickening needed.

We also picked some of Abbie’s turnips. I separated the roots from the leaves, discarding the larger, partially eaten ones. The roots, I parboiled with our new potatoes and then roasted with oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar for 20 mins at 200C. The leaves were boiled in a little bit of water for 4-5 mins and then tossed in a little butter. Great use of the whole plant!

Roast chicken with garlicky gravy, roast potatoes and turnips, broad beans and turnip greens

Sundae strawberries! Named and made by Abbie…

Look what was waiting for us on Sunday morning!

I knew that we had to do something special with our handfuls of strawberries and so I constructed this layered dessert ably assisted by Abbie, who also came up with the name ‘Sundae Strawberries’!

Sundae Strawberries – makes 3 martini or wine glass portions

10-15 strawberries (depending on size)
1/2 lemon
Icing sugar (4-5 tsp in total)
2 tblspn thick double cream
2 tblspn natural yoghurt
6 sponge fingers
Lemon curd

• In a bowl, combine 2/3 of you strawberries (sliced) with the juice of half a lemon and 2 heaped tsp of the icing sugar – stir and leave to one side for later
• In another bowl, stir together the yoghurt and double cream with the other 2 tsp icing sugar
• Break the sponge fingers into halves, spread thickly with lemon curd and place 4 of the halves at the bottom of each of your glasses
• Then layer up as shown in the photos below, finishing with the remainder of the strawberries (sliced) and some curls of lemon zest
• Refrigerate for the morning (at least 2-3 hours) and eat for lunch!

Spreading the lemon curd on the fingers....

Starting to layer, sponge fingers first.....

.... then strawberries....

.... letting the lemon berry syrup soak into the sponge...

All done! One 'Sundae Strawberries' ready for the fridge

Demolished in a matter of moments!