Hocus Pocus Platters

Creepy Cauldron platter (1)

Ingredients:

• Laughing Cow Cheese Triangles

• Poppy Seeds

• Yellow Pepper

• Mini Babybel cheeses

• Pretzel sticks

• Bread sticks

• Wholewheat tortilla wrap

• Chives

• Cherry tomatoes

• Black olives

• Cucumber slices

• Green grapes

• Baby carrots

• Blueberries

• Guacamole

Method:

Dip the Laughing Cow cheese triangles in poppy seeds and top each one with a strip of yellow pepper to make witches hats. Carve jack-o-lantern faces into the wax of mini Babybel cheeses and top with a pretzel stick stalk to make pumpkins. Make cuts along a strip of tortilla wrap and wrap around half a breadstick to make a broomstick. Tie together with chives. 

Cut cherry tomatoes in half, scoop out the flesh and fill with Laughing Cow cheese. triangles Top with slices of black olives to make eyeballs. Fill a small bowl with guacamole for a cauldron.

Place all your witchy foods on a large platter or tray and fill in the gaps with cucumber slices, green grapes, cherry tomatoes, baby carrots and blueberries. Decorate with toy spiders for extra creepiness!

Spooky Halloween Platter (2)

Ingredients:

• Mini Babybel cheeses

• Pretzel sticks

• Black olives

• Small crackers

• Laughing Cow Cheese Triangles

• Clementines

• Cucumber

• Baby peppers

• Cherry tomatoes

• Edible eye sprinkles

• Black grapes

• Blueberries

Method:

De-wax the mini Babybel Cheeses. Break the pretzel sticks into small pieces and push them into the sides of the cheese for spider legs. Finish the spiders with slices of black olives for eyes. Remove packaging from Laughing Cow cheese Triangles and pop into a disposable piping bag. Snip off the end and pipe cheese ‘bandages’ over crackers to make mummies. Finish the mummies with black olive slice eyes. 

Peel clementines and top with cucumber slicks to make pumpkins. Use Laughing Cow cheese to stick edible eye sprinkles to baby peppers and cherry tomatoes to make monster veggies.

Place all your spooky Halloween foods on a large platter or tray and fill in the gaps with cucumber sticks, black grapes and blueberries. Decorate with toy spiders for extra creepiness!

Actually, I think that these platters could be really useful (without the spooky bits!) as Christmas Platters.

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With Party Season Nearing, Mix up a Thatchers Cider Cocktail to Celebrate

Just right for Halloween, here is a delicious warming cider cocktail from Somerset family cider maker Thatchers, using Thatchers Gold and Thatchers Blood Orange ciders.

If you are looking for different ways to enjoy your Somerset Cider as the party season approaches, why not think about mixing a cider cocktail to celebrate with your friends and family?

It's a great way of enjoying your favourite Thatcher's cider in a slightly different way. A long and refreshing mix, or perhaps a twist on a sophisticated classic, we've got plenty of recipes to choose from on our website.

If our Blood Orange Cider is your favourite, why not try our new Thatcher's Toffee Apple Cider Cocktail. 

So bring out your inner mixologist by trying one of the cider cocktail recipes we have at www.thatcherscider.co.uk/cocktails .

Thatchers Toffee Apple Cider Cocktail

Ingredients   

25ml Jameson Whiskey                                                                 

25ml Kracken Spiced Rum 

25ml Tia Maria 

25ml Cinnamon syrup 

25ml Ginger beer 

150ml Thatchers Gold cider

Top up with Thatchers Blood Orange cider 

Method   

Shake the whiskey, rum & Tia Maria over ice in a Boston shaker 

Strain into a glass with ice 

Add the ginger beer & Thatchers Gold. Top with Thatchers Blood Orange Cider

Garnish with a slice of apple and a cinnamon stick.

Actually, thinking about it, this would make a great cocktail for drinking over the Christmas period, too!

More on home microgreens with the November issue of Kitchen Garden

My wife is a regular reader of the monthly gardener's magazine Kitchen Gardener.

In the November issue there are a wide variety of topics including how to make great compost, how to reduce your garden's carbon footprint, how to feed you soil to enable it to grow larger crops and a article on easy leafmould use.

You'll learn how to grow better garlic in your garden, how to fill your patch with tasty winter harvests.

You'll learn about fruit tree rootstocks, how to sow broad beans and their experts are running tests on a range of  compost bins.

Learn the mysteries of companion planting, how to get rid of your lawn and replace it with a vegetable plot and page after page of features and news. And all this for a very reasonable £5.99.

However! There's so much more! Because in this, the November issue, they are including, free of charge, what we estimate to be over twenty quid worth of seeds!

These are all from the highly reputable Mr Fothergill's seed company.

There are Mint, Broccoli, Garlic Chives, Lettuce, Mixed Spicy Salad Leaves, Carrot, Nantes 5, Scarlet Kale and Chervil all of which my wife is going to use as microgreen plantings.

There are also some Moneymaker Tomato seeds and Wildlife Attracting flower seeds, which can't be used for microgreens, but which will be excellent to plant in your kitchen garden.

Kitchen Garden is published by Mortons Media Group. the magazine's website address is www.kitchengarden.co.uk.

 

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Microgreens are great. But a word of caution

Microgreens are great, they are extremely nutritious, taste absolutely awesome and my wife has been growing microgreens for several years with a high level of success.

However, my wife, who is the RHA trained gardener in our family, (I merely have a BA (Hons) in Creative and Professional Writing!)  has asked me to point out that not all seeds are suitable for microgreen cultivation and production.

For example, you should not even attempt to microgreen cultivate plants that are in the nightshade family of plants.

This means you should not microgreen cultivate the following plants: tomatoes, tomatillos, eggplant, potatoes and peppers.

Pretty much all other plants that are edible for humans should be safe to microgreen cultivate, but if there is any doubt in your mind, do err on the side of caution and ask an expert. 

Or read a book on microgreen cultivation? There are now an ever widening range of books available on microgreen cultivation which you should be able to find at good garden centres with a gardening book section, major and independent book sellers and also online book shops such as Amazon, etc.

(Image courtesy of Markus Spiske and Pixabay)

Broccoli and kale microgreens pack a nutritional punch that varies with growing conditions

Although microgreens were initially intended as gourmet ingredients for high end restaurants, they’ve become popular among gardeners and home cooks. 

Despite their “superfood” label, the levels of healthful compounds, such as phytonutrients, in most varieties of microgreens are generally, not known. 

However, researchers in ACS Food Science & Technology now report kale and broccoli microgreens grown in either windowsills or under commercial growing conditions are rich in phytonutrients, though the levels of some compounds varied considerably between the two environments.

As indoor gardening has taken off in recent years, microgreens have added a pop of color to the windowsills of many homes. The most commonly planted varieties of these small seedlings are from the Brassica family, which includes broccoli, kale, cabbage and mustard. The mature, fully-grown versions of these vegetables are rich in vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals, and environmental conditions can impact the plants’ nutritional contents. 

But not much is known about the levels of these compounds in young microgreens. In a previous study, Thomas Wang, Pei Chen and colleagues observed that red cabbage microgreens had higher amounts of phytonutrients that have been reported to have antioxidant and anticancer properties, including polyphenols and glucosinolates, than the full-grown vegetables. However, similar assessments haven’t been done on other Brassica seedlings. 

So, the researchers wanted to measure the levels of polyphenols and glucosinolates in broccoli and kale microgreens, and then compare data from those grown on windowsills to those raised in commercial growth chambers.

The researchers placed trays of newly planted broccoli and kale seeds either on a windowsill in natural sunlight or inside a temperature- and humidity-controlled refrigerator-like growth chamber with artificial sunlight for 12 hours a day. Ten full days after seeding, the team harvested the plants and assessed the phytonutrient content with a liquid chromatography high-resolution mass spectrometry system. 

The broccoli and kale microgreens were rich in polyphenols and glucosinolates, no matter how they were grown. But there was considerable variability in the amounts of individual compounds when comparing the two growth environments. For instance, three flavanol compounds that contribute to the plant’s dark color and bitter taste were higher in windowsill-grown microgreens. However, chamber-grown plants had higher levels of two glucosinolates, which are antioxidant- and anticancer-related compounds. 

Overall, the growth environment for kale and broccoli microgreens affects the abundance of individual phytonutrients, the researchers say, which could affect their flavor and potential health benefits.

The authors acknowledge funding from U.S. appropriated funds to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China and the State Scholarship Fund of China Scholarship Council.

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organisation chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS’ mission is to advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and all its people. https://pubs.acs.org/journal/afsthl

(Image courtesy of congerdesign and Pixabay)

Johnsons adds cress and mustard to their Microgreens Range for 2023

The always popular Microgreens range from Johnsons Seeds has two new additions for you to grow next season: Cress and Mustard. Both have a reasonably priced RRP of just £2.65, they offer a traditional taste, which is ideal for salads and sandwiches. 

The Microgreens seed collection now consists of a whopping 18 varieties, ranging from established herbs and vegetables varieties such as Coriander and Beetroot, to somewhat more unusual choices like Mizuna and Spinach Komatsuna. All of which can be grown for baby ‘micro’ leaves, all year round on a kitchen windowsill. (My wife grows our microgreens in our conservatory. And in the kitchen, too.

Whether it’s putting a touch of colour to a sandwich, adding an extra ‘flavour punch’ to your main meals, anyone can grow these nutritious baby leaves, whatever size of garden space you have. Or even if you have no garden space at all, as they'll be ideal for growing in the kitchen or living room of a flat or an apartment. Some varieties are ready to harvest in as little as a couple of weeks. So making it absolutely perfect for those gardeners who want or need a quick and relatively easy way to add some goodness to their diet. Ideal for vegans and vegetarians, too? Student accommodation would make for a good location for growing microgreens to help students ensure they have a good varied diet.

Helen Clayton, who is the Brand Manager for Johnsons said: “Our range of seeds for microgreens continues to be a big hit with customers and consumers."

She went on to say: "Even after the exceptional growth we saw during the pandemic, sales of our Microgreens range have continued to increase this season, by over 20% compared to 2021. 

"For those of us who enjoyed growing from seed for the first time during the lockdown and who perhaps don’t have the time or garden space to spend growing vegetables in the conventional way, microgreens have proved to make an excellent alternative choice.”

Also available as part of the range is the Microgreens Growing Kit (RRP £4.99) which is an eminently reusable and high quality growing tray which helps start you off on your Microgreens journey by helpfully including packets of Basil, Coriander and Rocket microgreens seeds. 

Once ready, the Johnsons compact Micro Snips (RRP £3.99), with spring action handles, are an easy way to harvest your crops. 

The Microgreens Kitchen Seed Sprouter has an RRP £11.99 and is a convenient and economical way to produce continuous crops of fresh seed sprouts such as alfalfa and mung beans, as well as the baby leaves of microgreens.

To learn more please visit http://johnsons-trade.com/

That's Food and Drink feels that using Microgreens will be an ideal way to enhance your Christmas meals. Imagine including, for example, Mizuna and Spinach Komatsuna microgreens with your Christmas dinner vegetables?