Monthly Archives: September 2010

Huevos de Codornices en Rabo de Mestiza

The sequence of events goes like this. We grow some tomatillos (see blog post below). We need recipes for tomatillos. We buy “The Essential Cuisines of Mexico” by Diana Kennedy, who is the queen of Mexican cooking. This starts us off on an exploration of Mexican food, and provides inspiration as to what to do with the inevitable surpluses of produce that any allotments create at this time of year.

Diana Kennedy describes Huevos en Rabo de Mestiza (Eggs poached in a chilli-tomato broth) as a “delicious brunch dish”. And she’s right. This is now a Sunday brunch special!

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The local jeunesse doree

We had a call on Sunday that the apiary had been vandalised. Sure enough, the screen fence has been smashed down and two beehives pushed over. One of the other beekeepers discovered it, and reinstated the hives, at some cost in stings.

I guess that we’ll repair the fence in due course. It’s probably better not to do so immediately, lest the vandals find the site a source of even greater entertainment – “they kinda build it up, like, man, innit, and we break it down, know what I mean? Tacticaaal!”.

I’m pondering whether to report it to the police. On the one hand, if I do, they’ll mock me, which will do nothing for my blood pressure. On the other hand, if I don’t, and one of these exemplars of modern education gets stung to death, I’ll probably be thrown in the slammer on a murder charge.

Tomatillos and Salsa Verde

I don’t know quite why, but earlier this year I ordered some tomatillo seeds. All I knew about them was that they were used in Mexican cooking, but could be grown here in the UK, and were highly productive plants – a bit like sprawling tomato plants.

Well, that last bit was certainly right! Here are some of them. There are gherkins in the foreground, a line of tomatillos behind them, and sweetcorn behind the tomatillos:

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