Firstly an apology for the lack of blog posts in the last week or so – I was away in the wilds of Northumberland without an internet connection, and then stupidly left my laptop behind. I got it back last night with the help of Facebook and some very lovely friends.
Anyway, I’m back!
What a month it’s been at the lotters – the growth has been astounding, the weeds have gone MENTAL and it’s been a battle to keep on top of it.
Every time I go up there I come back laden with produce. Potatoes, courgettes, tomatoes, spring onions, french beans and broad beans… it’s just a brilliant time! My bill at the supermarket has gone right down as we’re pretty self sufficient on the veg front 🙂
To celebrate the first picking of broad beans I made a chunky dip – this is a fab little recipe for something a bit different from hummus.
Chunky broad bean dip
I blanched the beans for a couple of minutes, cooled them off under the cold tap and then popped them out of their cases.
I then blitzed them in my mini chopper with fresh mint, a clove of garlic and a good splurge of olive oil and scattering of sea salt.
Delicious spread on hot buttered toast for a light lunch or as a dip with carrot and celery sticks. I particularly loved the vivid green colour of it.
Next on my list are the French Beans of which we are collecting carrier bags full! I shall be making my mum’s green bean chutney which i’m pretty excited about…
Ooh that dip looks amazing – and what a gorgeous colour.. I want an allotment!
So greeeeen – my fave colour! Allotments are def the way forward. Do they have them near you?
Yummy! I’m going to make this later, our broad beans have gone absolutely mental.
For various reasons we didn’t manage to get to the allotment for over a week. Hubby went yesterday and said the courgettes are all MASSIVE and wants to enter them in the village show!
Lol! Courgettes are crazy – we were away for a week too and had the same experience – mahooooooosive!!!!! We need to find a volunteer to tend the lotters when we go to France or there may be an invasion!!!!!!
What a lovely trug full of produce, I’m looking forward to your visit this weekend!The broad bean dip is a novel way to use broad beans.
i’ll get down the looters today to do a picking before we come 🙂