The Pumpkin Patch workshops will start back on Monday 9th January for the Teen group and  Saturday 14th  January for the juniors.

Places are available for both classes please get in touch if you’d like to book a place. See you all very soon!

The New Term!

The Autumn Term at The Pumpkin Patch Cookery and Gardening School will begin on 1st October 2011. This is a little later than usual due some rather major work that has been carried out in ‘The Pumpkin Patch’ kitchen.

The Pumpkin Patch Juniors (aged 8 -12 years) will begin

Saturday 1st October 2011 at 10 – 12 noon

The Pumpkin Patch Teens (12+) will resume the usual

Monday night cookery workshops on 3rd October, 6 – 8pm.

Mackerel Pate

Here it is at last….I promised this very easy recipe to loads of people
at Carmarthen Leisure Center recently. Sorry it’s a little late
but during school holiday time and I have to fight for the computer!

This is the simplest pate to make but absolutely delicious spread on toast
or used as a dip with fresh vegetables (as we did with the children)

You will need  (Ingredients)

1 pack of smoked mackerel

1 pack of Philadelphia soft cheese or an equivalent cheese

2 tablespoons crème fresh or natural yogurt

a squeeze of lemon juice

Salt and ground black pepper

Method

Add about ¾ of the tub of Philadelphia soft cheese and mix well.

Add 2 tablespoons crème fresh or even natural yogurt

Add the juice of ½ lemon and season with salt and pepper

Taste and adjust the seasoning to suit….. how simple is that?

A Spring in our Step at The Pumpkin Patch

The anticipation of spring arriving is as exciting as spring itself! At The Pumpkin Patch we wait … and wait with itchy green fingers for the arrival of warmer weather, longer days and finally the happy chattering of the resident swallows.

It’s so, so tempting to start planting and sowing at the first signs of spring. I have so many times, despite years of experience, turned the soil and failed to resist the temptation to beat the system, the books and my common sense … and sown runner beans and peas into the prepared soil. They look so good pushing their little heads through the bare soil (not a weed in sight – far too early and cold!!!) The contrast of the green against the black soil is so full of hope and then disaster strikes – just one frost and the poor things have lost the battle. Silly me!

One of the busiest and most popular of The Pumpkin Patch holiday clubs is the Easter Club. There’s so much we can do, from planting and sowing in the greenhouse and garden, to baking Easter Cookies, Simnel Cakes, Hot Cross buns and little chocolate delights. At the end of the day we can amuse ourselves with the Easter Tree, egg blowing, making Easter Cards and decorating our own personal “My Garden” signs and plant labels for use throughout the coming year. There’s plenty to do and thankfully time is on our side with the lovely bright mornings and light evenings.

January at The Pumpkin Patch 

It may still be cold outside but the first signs of spring are evident – if you look hard.

 Even without venturing outside the postman brings the first reminders that Christmas has been and gone, and it’s time to think ahead….. to warmer longer days. Bliss!

The seed catalogues arrive in abundance! In years now long gone, before the arrival of young dependants, the new year was marked by the thunderous sound of heavy travel brochures dropping through the letterbox; now it’s the seed catalogues – how things change!!

It’s amazing how many hours one can spend deliberating over which seed potatoes to order and whether to opt for long or round, yellow or green courgettes this year! This is simply a way of whiling away the cold dark days longing for the arrival of March – when things really start looking up, brightening up and popping up through the bare soil. That said, one mustn’t forget the beautiful loyal snowdrop which emerges year after year through rain, ice or snow to show it’s elegant head and cheer us up just when us gardeners need it!

At The Pumpkin Patch the seed catalogues serve a dual purpose (well triple actually). Once we’ve examined, pondered over and decided what to plant this year, they’re recycled by being cut up and used to either decorate the Pumpkin Patch Gardening Files or to create a garden plan. We cut out photos of carrots, onions, potatoes, beans, peas etc etc (you get the gist!) and arrange them on a sheet of A4 paper to create a plan of what our vegetable patch will look like by mid to late summer. The children enjoy half an hour of cutting, sticking and designing, following an hour of cooking on a Saturday morning. Finally, what remains of the catalogues end up in the compost bin finally ending their very useful life.

One of the advantages of running a cookery and gardening school is the abundant enthusiasm available to do those not so exciting jobs! After many gardening years, the enthusiasm for cleaning and washing pots, seed trays and the glasshouse has slightly waned; not for a ten year old! The possibility of combining water, soap, brushes and pots – and best of all a hosepipe – usually gets my greenhouse sparking in no time! There is usually the odd wet casualty, but they usually agree that it was worth it!

Early daffodils and primulas, followed by tulips, bring a real sense of arrival – the light at the end of the tunnel. Finally, wellies can be exchanged for gardening shoes, thick waterproof gardening gloves for a cotton variety, and eventually – before you know it – spring has sprung

This year I believe Easter is fairly late.

This is no bad thing, an early Easter means that the long bank holiday can’t be put to good use in the garden. At the Pumpkin Patch a late Easter allows us to look forward, plan, cook and make good use of the weeks running up to the holiday weekend. It allows us time to celebrate winter with plenty of baking and hot soups, to celebrate Mothering Sunday, Valentines Day and Shrove Tuesday with pancakes and galettes. Then we build up towards the Easter finale …with an Easter tree, painted eggs and Easter cakes and cookies….. but more about that next time!

For more information and photos see the new edition (January / February) of Carmarthenshire Life

Christmas at the Pumpkin Patch

  I love cooking at Christmas – what can beat the cosiness of being indoors creating delicious extravagant treats as the cold December rain hammers against the windows? What can beat the pleasure of working with a hot oven when it’s cold, dark, wet and windy outside? I love to decorate the kitchen with fairy lights and then to watch their reflection bounce off the windows as night closes in, cooking extravagant and luxurious puddings and cakes … oh, I can’t wait!

For me, as Christmas approaches, I dust off the familiar Christmas CDs and torment the rest of the family with endless hours of Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole as I settle in the kitchen weighing out the ingredients for what feels like hundreds of Christmas cakes! Then of course, I have The Pumpkin Patch Workshops, full of excited children who can hardly stand still for long enough to mix, let alone weigh out the ingredients!!

Probably the best Pumpkin Patch Workshop of the entire year has to be the Christmas Holiday Club (‘though Easter isn’t far behind!). It’s a great time to get creative and experiment with a little craft. We forage the hedgerows for what remains of the winter berries and cut down buckets full of ivy and holly ready for the Christmas table decorations. My usual boring shed looks more like a florists workshop as scissors and secateurs cut and chop lengths of ivy to size, and rolls of ribbon are creatively used to tie them all together for Mum and Dad’s Christmas present. With gold and silver spray the little darlings’ amazing efforts look wonderful and don’t come with a £35 price tag! The best things in life are free … or nearly, anyway!

 The best Christmas recipes should be simple; why get stressed by crazy and complicated recipes when all the children want is company to play their latest game or to watch a good film? That said, it’s good to have some me time; and if that means experimenting with a few recipes in a cosy kitchen whilst listening to Bing Crosby and sipping a glass of mulled wine … then so be it! The best and easiest compromise I guess, is to invite the kids to join in; they’ll soon learn that you win some and you lose some – some recipes are successful and others not. That’s the best way to learn and gain confidence in the kitchen, and when they’re fed up of Bing Crosby they’ll soon find something else to do!!

“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, 
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun”
 (John Keats)

Autumn – It’s Tidy up Time!

 There’s plenty to write about at this time of year. If I’m totally honest I think it’s my favourite month. A month to recover from the summer sun, the children’s school holidays, to set new routines and to reap the benefits of long hours in the garden. At last, the weeds begin to ease their attack on the summer flower and vegetable borders and the harvest is abundant!

 Hedgerows have provided us with ample fruit for jams and jellies, and late maturing tomatoes and sun ripened pumpkins and squashes provide good reason to get pickling and storing the incessant harvest.

 Life at The Pumpkin Patch is good and busy, long days of clearing away and preparing for the winter ahead (almost as though a huge storm is imminent!). It’s great fun to sow seed, to water and weed, to reap the rewards the garden has to offer, but the task of finally putting the garden into near hibernation for a few months is joy indeed! It’s like a happy and great ending to a good book.

 At Allt y Gôg Farm, a sign that autumn is finally upon us is the chattering and farewell of our resident swallows and the thick cold mists that greet us each morning. It’s bye bye swallows, good morning autumn!

 With the kids back at school and The Pumpkin Patch back in full swing – there’s plenty to do! The Summer Holiday clubs are a relaxed affair, a mix of cookery and gardening, of craft and the pure enjoyment of the simple things. The children are busy but the pace is relaxed!

 Once the Autumn term begins, the need to use, preserve and appreciate the seasonal produce forces the pace a little, the pressure is on!!

 Pumpkins

My favourite in the garden, hence the name The Pumpkin Patch!

 The bright coloured pumpkins revealed themselves a few weeks back as the foliage started to die back. They are now in full glory, like jewels in the garden, hardly surprising that they feature so highly for Halloween. Whether or not one supports Halloween, one has to recognise the beauty of the pumpkin. Christmas trees and baubles brighten up the winter months, but the cheerful pumpkins sure do brighten up a dull Autumn day.

 Other Autumn Treats

 Regular classes at The Pumpkin Patch started back this week and we were spoilt for choice. Bramble jelly, pumpkin soup or another favourite of mine … stinger soup, using a bucket full of stinging nettles (a great detox!), bean and potato salad to use up the enormous amount of French purple beans we have or..( I could go on and on!). ….this is why I love October.

Thursday 14^th October saw the third Seasonal Cookery Workshop at the Pumpkin Patch. We made a variety of vegetarian and fish dishes including a delicious vegetable tagine with lemon and honey, cod cooked with tomatoes and beans,pan fried sea bass with an easy tomato, basil and balsamic vinegar dressing.

We had a great time and finally sat to enjoy the prepared feast, with a glass of wine of course!

The next workshop will be a Christmas Special on Thursday December 2^nd.

During September The Pumpkin Patch organised childrens workshops at the Taste of Tywi food Festival in Llandeilo. This was a great event at which Bryn Williams, Anthony Evans, Hazel Thomas and myself held a number of cookery workshops and demonstrations. Lots of local food producers attended as well as local schools,choirs and dancers.

For up to date regular information on what we’re doing, what we’ve done and where The Pumpkin Patch will be next, please subscribe to my blog:

BeyondThePumpkinPatch.blogspot.com

The website contains all the information you need, but the Blog will keep you informed about what’s happening right now.

In May, The Pumpkin Patch organised The Children’s Zone at the West

Wales Food Festival held at the National Botanic Garden of Wales.

With four workshops each day we were certainly kept busy.

Ant and Eleri from the Welsh TV program Stwnch helped out

with the Welsh Cakes whilst the Pumpkin Patch kids assisted(?)

them in their demonstrations.