I love our neighbours!
On Saturday afternoon, VegBox Husband and I were lolling on the sofa when we heard an insistent rapping on the letter box.
I peeked out the window in the door and couldn’t see a soul!
So I opened the door and looked down to be greeted by the sunny little face of Salvadore, who lives two doors down.
He was bearing gifts, and so was his lovely Mum, Michaela. Specifically, they brought us a wild strawberry plant, complete with strawberries on, which is now jostling for attention with the other yummies in our Waist-Height-Garden.
They also brought us branches of bay leaves, and, as pictured, a bag full of Salad Blue Potatoes from their allotment at the end of our road.
Michaela tells me that Salad Blues are a 19th Century heritage variety. Unfortunately, apparently they lose their skin colour if you boil them, and so turning them into mash yields a bit of an off-putting grey-ish result.
So we’ve decided to do an experiment. We’re going to try sauteeing, dauphinoise-ing and mini-baking to discover how to get them onto the plate and edible and still bright blue.
Anyone got any guesses or experience?
PS we also had a conversation about greengages, as there’s a tree in our neighbourhood that’s heaving with them. Anyone know any good greengage recipes?
(Photo by Michaela S. – with thanks)
Categories: food, seasonal eating, vegetables
Greengages – they are basically plums, but a different colour (similar flavour to scrummy victoria plums), so any plum recipe will do. Try making jam, stewing them up with a little honey or brown sugar to eat on their own or with yoghurt/rice pudding/icecream/porridge etc for breakfast ot dessert, making them into pies and/or crumbles, adding them as an ingredient to a fruity stew or curry or, just eating them! I am now very jealous of your yummy sounding problem!
OooOOOH! In CURRY!!! Yeah baby!
WOW! I am stunned by these gorgeous salad blue potatoes! I would love to get hold of these myself! Are they readily available to grow at home? It might be an idea to contact the British Potato Council to see if they can shed any more light on the potato variety and how best to cook and retain the colour/flavour….they have a couple of websites but you could start here: britishpotatoes.co.uk Happy cooking with your lush potatoes…… PS if you do work out how to retain colour/flavour please let us know! ;op
Hey Charlotte. Just to let you know, Carroll’s did stock them although it doesn’t look like they are right now. We tried roasting v foil baking, but unfortunately, although they were scrumptious, the skins didn’t really retain a very vivid colour. : (
Oh what a shame
but I think they are still lovely to look at when they haven’t been cooked! ;op